


The Sting of Cupid’s Arrow

by blynnk



Series: Eros [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Barebacking, Biting, Blow Jobs, Bottom Clint Barton, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Consent Issues, Dirty Talk, Dubious Consent, Everyone Needs A Hug, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Gay For You, Happy Ending, Humor, Loss of Virginity, Lust Potion/Spell, M/M, Open Relationships, Oral Sex, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Power Dynamics, Protective Hulk (Marvel), Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Rimming, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, Seduction, Switch Tony Stark, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Top Bucky Barnes, Top Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-24 00:55:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20017603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blynnk/pseuds/blynnk
Summary: “So, what’re we dealing with here? The god of carnal desire hits five of us with… what? Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is,” Tony practically begged. When Bruce and Wong silently looked at each other again, Tony snapped, “Alright, stop that. Use your words.”“There’s no record of Eros attacking Earth in recent history, but he’s known for creating mischief.”“We’ll just have to wait and see how bad it is once they wake up.”“Assuming they will wake up.”“If this is a sleeping beauty thing, I’m not kissing anybody,” Tony cut in.---------------------------------The god of primal sexual desire hits half the Avengers with a powerful lust spell. There are consequences.AKA the WinterHawk + Stony + Starker fic no one asked for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started as ‘Ooh, lust spells! Naughty!’ and quickly went darker and more emotional than expected. LOTS of consent issues at play here!! If sex happening where someone involved is technically unable to consent (solely because of lust magic) upsets you, this won’t be your thing. Peter is 17. Clint isn’t married. I initially planned to focus mostly on Clint/Bucky, but Tony/Steve, then Tony/Peter (and Bruce! What the hell, Bruce? *whispers* he just cares too much and I love him) kind of took over. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I gave the boys free rein to make stupid decisions. The AI has blind spots. It’s all good, just please enjoy <3
> 
> This is a completed work. New chapter will be posted every 2 days. Next chapter to be posted Tuesday.

“Sir, urgent distress call from Dr. Stephen Strange,” FRIDAY chirped in Tony Stark’s ear.

He eased off the propulsion jets in his Iron Man suit even more—Peter Parker was already a full block ahead of him, moving with more stealth than Tony was able to as they tracked a known gun runner. The guy had come up on facial recognition, so Tony had asked Peter to come out and join him. The goal was a ‘two birds, one stone’ deal: take out the local base of operations of whoever kept flooding the neighborhood with black market weapons and also field-test some enhanced stealth features Tony had recently added to the Spideysuit. They were powerful enough that even Tony’s sensors had trouble getting a read on the kid.

“Put him through,” Tony told FRIDAY. “What’s up, doc?”

Silence.

“Doc? Strange? Hey! You read me? Shit. Okay, give me his last known coordinates.”

Peter whispered in his com, “Everything okay back there, Mr. Stark?”

“Looks like we’ve gotta cut this short, kiddo. Got a distress call from Strange and the energy readings from his location tell me this is above your pay grade. Plant a tracker on that guy you’re tailing, then head home. Do not engage solo. I’ll check in later.” Tony set a course and flew off, increasing speed.

“Wait! I can help!”

“Negative. Plant the tracker. Go home.”

“But… but I can handle it! I’m on the team now. You don’t have to protect me!”

“Peter, that’s an order!” Shifting mental gears, he checked the ETA of the rest of the Avengers.

FRIDAY listed them off, “Captain Steve Rogers ETA three minutes. Sergeant Bucky Barnes ETA three minutes. Clint Barton ETA four minutes. Sam Wilson ETA fourteen minutes. Colonel James Rhodes ETA fifteen minutes. Wanda Maximoff out of range. Vision out of range. Natasha Romanoff out of range…”

Tony cut off the rest as the target came into sight.

The visual was bonkers: A mostly-naked curly-haired dude the size of Thor but with actual white-feathered wings—wearing nothing but a flimsy length of white fabric draped over a shoulder and belted at the waist, along with some leather sandals—stood in the middle of the street about a block away from the Sanctum Sanctorum on Bleeker Street, near the apparently unconscious body of Dr. Stephen Strange. Traffic had piled up in all directions around them, with civilians doing the usual of either lingering to record video on their phones, or panicking and running away. Some police had arrived and were pushing them all back to safety. To the direct right of their new winged friend—who was shouting in a language neither Tony or his AI were able to instantly recognize—a portal opened just as Tony made his approach from the left, hovering above and between the pair as he unleashed his weapons on the target, aiming merely to stun.

As soon as Tony engaged, the guy’s focus shifted and glowing red projectiles flew through the air toward him. His shields were up and the projectiles bounced off, disintegrating before they had a chance to ricochet very far. Tony had no chance to wonder about it, because Steve and Bucky were approaching from the south on motorcycles, and a length of spider web had just shot toward the body of Dr. Strange.

“Peter, I swear to god!” Tony cursed.

Tony had no visual on the kid, who was staying at his six and trying to get Strange out of the way. Webs shot at the glowing… arrows, they were arrows, he realized… went right through them, and any shot at toga guy vaporized before contact.

Everything sped up with so much happening at once. Tony took heavy blasts, having pissed off their enemy with his failing to get hit or stay still.

Steve took an arrow to the chest right while lining up a shot with the shield, falling in a limp heap to the road. Peter let out a sharp cry from above Tony, then Peter began to fall through the air from two hundred feet up with nothing but asphalt beneath him so Tony dove to intercept and it was going to be close. He braced for impact with the pavement, turning to catch the kid and—

*

“What do you remember?” Bruce asked Tony.

Running a hand over his face, taking in the view of the long hall in the med bay filled with the unconscious forms of five of the Avengers, Tony’s hyperactive mind came to a rare, complete stop, facing a problem with no logical solution. God, he hated magic.

Wong moved from body to body, looking them over for what, Tony had absolutely no idea. The doctors had already been through and helpfully pronounced all the unresponsive patients to be perfectly healthy. Scans showed they were all in states of seemingly normal, comfortable REM sleep. But their sleeping beauties refused to wake up.

Tony glanced briefly up at Rhodey and Wilson, who’d arrived precisely too late to prevent any of this, the helplessness in their expressions mirroring everything Tony was too afraid to face. For the sake of his continued composure, he kept his back to the bed where Parker lay, still in his Spideysuit. Tony hadn’t been able to take more than three steps away from the kid since he’d been wheeled in on a gurney.

Dragging his attention back to Bruce’s question, Tony started, “Uh, big Greek guy with wings, fresh from an obviously bitchin’ toga party, flinging arrows out of nowhere. No quiver or bow, just materializing as needed, I guess. Strange was already knocked out when I got there. Cupid kept trying to yank him toward a portal of some kind. I was the only one airborne, so I tried to keep him away from Strange as best I could, which he didn’t like at all. He aimed a few energy blasts of some kind at me when the arrows wouldn’t pierce the suit. Steve tried to get in the way, got hit, lights went out and he hit the ground. I heard the—” he swallowed a growl, “the kid trying to warn me. I _told him_ to stay back. To—” He sighed because the only other option was to punch the wall. “Then he fell, right out of the air, so I tried to catch him, and that’s it. That’s all I’ve got.” He pitched his voice louder. “Wong, you got anything yet?”

“Come take a look at this,” he invited, standing next to Steve’s bed. They gathered around, along with Agent Maria Hill, who’d been orchestrating the clean-up and itching to get to the debriefing. Wong gently lifted Steve’s eyelid. “Look close.”

“Is that…?” Hill frowned.

“You see the light? Flecks of red shining in the iris? They all have it,” he gestured to the rest of the hall. “And to the same degree. It points to some kind of magical infection.”

“The arrows,” Tony supplied.

“I have a theory,” Wong said, standing up straight, posture weary. “You’re not going to like it.”

“Lay it on us,” Rhodey asked.

“From the visuals on the video feed, the energetic pulses, and psychic traces left on the victims, my best guess is it’s Eros.”

“Eros?” Bruce gave a sickly laugh. “Holy shit, Tony, you were right. It _was_ Cupid.”

“Since when is Cupid a real guy?” Wilson countered.

“Eros, not Cupid. Son of Aphrodite, or child of Iris and Zephyrus, or Nyx and Erebus. Depends on which story you believe. Either way, he’s the God lust and primal sexual desire.”

“And you’re saying he’s a real dude?” Wilson asked, eyebrows raised.

“The Norse gods are real, so hey, why not,” Tony groaned, running his hand through his hair.

“If this guy’s mom is Aphrodite, who’s his dad?”

Bruce and Wong looked at each other. “Reportedly Ares, god of war.”

“Oh, awesome. Great. War’s kid is attacking the Avengers.”

“He was going after Strange. Why?” Tony asked.

“We don’t know,” Wong admitted. “Parts of the Sanctum were ransacked, but I didn’t notice anything missing. Once Stephen wakes, we’ll know more.”

“He was trying to take him through a portal. Was this about an artifact or a personal beef with Strange?”

Wong shrugged.

“Haven’t been able to get a read on his language,” Tony said, “so it’s hard to say.”

“By the time we got there,” Rhodey said, “Everyone else was knocked out. We got Strange away from him, and pretty quickly after that Eros left through the portal. Seems to me he didn’t get what he came for.”

“Which means he’ll be back.”

“What the hell did they get hit with? They looked like arrows.”

“There were no arrows or weapon fragments in them when we brought them in,” Bruce explained. “There weren’t even wounds, except for some scrapes and bruising from how they each landed.”

“So, what are we dealing with here? The god of carnal desire hits five of us with… what? Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is,” Tony practically begged. When Bruce and Wong silently looked at each other again, Tony snapped, “Alright, stop that. Use your words.”

“There’s no record of Eros attacking Earth in recent history, but he’s known for creating mischief.”

“Great, another Loki.”

“We’ll just have to wait and see how bad it is once they wake up.”

“Assuming they will wake up.”

“If this is a sleeping beauty thing, I’m not kissing anybody,” Tony cut in.

Bruce gave him a heavy stare, “Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure that would be the best outcome we could hope for. If they were hit with a spell, we have no idea of its affects, whether it’s reversible, or how long it’ll last. If Eros was going after Strange, this seems to me a great way to incapacitate him. If he’s been driven crazy with primal lust, he’s not exactly going to be in fighting shape. Neither will the rest of them.”

“I’ll do some research,” Wong assured them. “As a precaution, I’ve put a containment spell on the Tower. Stephen won’t be able to leave or perform magic here until I return.”

“I’m sure he’ll love that.”

“Well, first we need him conscious,” Wong assured them as he left, through the door for once like a normal person, “I won’t be long.”

*

Clint had always been a light sleeper—quick to wake, easily startled—so his first sign something was screwy was when he kept getting sucked back under every time he started to wake up. All he got were glimpses: raised voices, a view of a bright hallway with a sensation of movement, a glaring light shining in his left eye, then eerie silence and the chemical, lemony scent of a recently cleaned floor. After getting caught in the tide of sleepiness several times, his panic helped fuel a more desperate fight to snap out of it. Someone must have drugged him, but he couldn’t remember where he’d been or why.

When he began again to surface, he intentionally bit down on his tongue as hard as he could. Groaning at the bright flare of pain and coppery tang of the taste of blood, he clenched his fists, ready for the tug of restraints when he attempted to move, wondering if they’d be rope, zip ties, or leather. He knew he could get out of whatever it was, even if it meant losing a chunk of flesh on his hand to do it, or dislocating his thumb. Tongue throbbing, his head cleared even more as confusion took over, because there were no restraints. His hands slid freely over sheets.

“He’s coming out of it,” he heard. It sounded like…

“Bruce?” It came out slurred and dopey. “The fuck, man?”

“Take it easy,” Bruce said in his soothing doctor voice. He pried up one of Clint’s eyelids and shone a light in his pupil, making him wince. “What do you remember?”

“I don’t…” His body felt so heavy; the bed so soft. It would be easy to just let go and drift back…

The next time he rose back up to consciousness, he was pissed. So pissed, he used all of his strength to roll and fell right out of bed, hitting the tile floor with a thud and a moan as he landed hard on his side. He tried to get his hands planted, to push off the floor and sit up, but his hand kept slipping, his control of fine motor skills nil.

“The fuck’d they gimme anyway. Christ.” His hand slipped again just as he’d gotten it under him, arm shaking, and hit his jaw hard on the floor. A lightning bolt of pain spiked through his skull. “Fuck.”

A hand gripped him, guiding him upright. Then another.

“Just like Stephen,” a female voice commented.

“Yeah, the difference in their refractory period isn’t surprising. I still think Strange had some lingering abilities to help him out there too. Clint’s the only one who’s just… human. Clint? Can you hear us?”

“Yes, I can fucking…” They were holding him upright, sitting propped up against the side of the bed, but his mental grip started to slip again.

A sudden pungent ammonia smell from directly under his nostrils made him groan and blink, finally opening his eyes.

“There you are,” Bruce smiled.

“Why’m I so goddamned sleepy, man? What’m I on?”

“Long story. It’s not drugs. Look right here.” He raised a finger. Clint followed it with his eyes as Bruce moved it side to side. “Your full name?”

“Clint Barton.”

“Your _full_ name.”

“Asshole. Clinton Francis Barton.”

“Good. How are you feeling?”

“We’ve been through this, I’m fucking sleepy!”

“That’s all?”

“Well, falling out of bed kind of sucked.” He took a better look around. He was in one of the small, private medical rooms he’d visited too many times to count. He recognized the glaring white walls and the ceiling they’d had to spackle over and over again when he’d been bedridden and kept tossing sharp objects up there in fun patterns to pass the time. Last time he’d managed to write ‘HAWKEYE WUZ HERE’ out of 21-gauge needles in the time it took the nurse to walk out of the room, check her supply tray and turn around to yell at him for wasting resources.

Slowly, his head cleared a little more and he realized he could hear yelling from neighboring rooms.

“How’d I get here? Who’s yelling?”

Bruce exchanged a glance with the nurse, who nodded, stood, and left. As the door swung shut behind her, he noticed an armed guard in the hall. That was new.

He took a more careful look at Bruce.

“Keeping me in, or keeping someone out?” Clint asked.

Bruce sighed. “Come on, let’s get you back on the bed.” He guided Clint’s arm to loop behind his shoulders and heaved him upright, Clint’s legs almost boneless as he tried to bear weight on them. He dropped down onto the mattress and just barely kept from falling all the way backward. Bruce pushed him to lean back against a pillow stuck between him and the wall and checked a few of his vital signs before saying anything more.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“What do you remember?” Bruce said evasively.

“I um…” It was so hazy. “There was a debriefing with Hill, Rogers, and Barnes. It took forever and I was starving, so I went out to get a slice or two from that place Gino’s a few blocks down when… Oh. That’s right. I got the call from FRIDAY to rendezvous with Tony and the others on Bleeker Street. I jumped on my bike and took off. Got there right after Rogers and Barnes. Barnes, um…”

Distracted, Clint remembered the view of Barnes skidding to a halt on his bike, swinging a thick leg over and off in a smooth, powerful movement, then striding confidently toward the enemy as his gun swung in a clean arc over his shoulder from where it had been strapped to his broad back, shaking his long hair out of his eyes and…

“Clint!”

“Weird. Sorry. Where was I?”

“What do you remember after you arrived at the location?”

“The location. Right. Is Barnes okay? Where is everyone else? Was he hurt?”

“One thing at a time. What about the location. What did you see?”

Clint glanced up where he knew the surveillance camera was, then over to the door with the armed guard beyond, and the yelling beyond that. It sounded like…

“Did you see Dr. Strange?” Bruce cut in through the swelling noise in Clint’s mind.

Did he?

“Yeah, I. I think I did. On the ground. There were lights. Red lights. Some kind of laser or energy pulse. No. No, wait. They were… they were arrows. Like nothing I’d ever seen before. Steve got hit and the whole arrow went right into him, fletching and all. Like it was swallowed by his chest. And then Barnes, and… Are they? Is he alive? Is he okay? I—”

He sprung to his feet, or would have, if his feet were at all under his control at that point. All he managed was to launch himself off the bed and right into Bruce as he instantly began to fall again.

With some effort, Bruce got him back into the bed.

“You need to remain seated,” Bruce commanded him. “Do I need to get restraints? Or are you going to listen?”

Clint’s gaze darted to the door.

Bruce growled, his eyes shining green. “Listen!”

Freezing instantly, eyebrows up by his hairline, Clint surrendered. “Sorry. It’s cool. I’m cool. I’ll sit.”

“Good. Sorry, I’m pretty angry about all of this,” Bruce allowed, taking a breath or three. The green faded from his eyes and his voice lowered back to its normal tone and volume.

“I can tell.”

“Who are you most worried about right now? Barnes?”

“Um. Yeah. Why? Why, did something happen to him? I saw him get hit and—” Bruce held up a hand. Clint heard himself, how frantic he sounded. His pulse was racing and his breathing was erratic. What the hell?

“Bucky’s fine. You trust me?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I trust you.”

“Why are you worried about Bucky?”

“Um.”

“You saw a few people get hit, right? So why do you keep asking about Barnes?”

“I just wanna see him. Can I? I just wanna make sure he’s okay. That’s him, isn’t it? Yelling? Him and—”

“Steve. Yeah. They’re pretty fired up, but they’re both healthy.”

“What’s the guard for, Bruce?”

Bruce deflated a little and stood upright, folding his arms. “Five of you were hit with a magical weapon. You, specifically, have been unconscious for twenty-three hours. They woke up after five,” Bruce explained, thumbing over his shoulder toward the yelling. “Advanced healing and all that. We’re still evaluating everyone to determine the effects of the weapon.”

“I feel fine. Other that the obvious,” he lifted his arms and let them fall heavily back to the mattress at his sides.

After a long moment of what appeared to be inner debate, Bruce slid a tablet from off the top of the cabinet by the door and brought it over. He called up four video feeds, projecting them simultaneously into the air between them. The first was Spiderkid hanging upside down from a web in an identical medical room, swinging idly back and forth as he stared at the door. The second was Stephen Strange, scrawling notes over papers strewn over the bed in which he sat, his movements sluggish. The third was Steve Rogers arguing loudly with Rhodey and Sam Wilson, who stood like a two-man barricade in front of the door. Sam’s hand was raised and his eyes placating, like he was talking to a someone unhinged. Steve was standing with his feet planted wide, still wearing his uniform, chest puffed out, gesturing impatiently to the hallway. The fourth… Bucky faced a hologram of Tony projected in front of the intimidating and very real presence of three autonomous, silver Iron Man suits, which were all lined up neatly to block the only exit to Bucky’s room. Bucky stood in a similar stance to Steve, chin lowered but eyes up and locked to Tony. The metal arm’s fist was clenched. Clint’s gaze traced the shape of him lit up in the hologram’s blue light: the soft curtain of hair fallen over his eye, the strength of his angular jaw, the wide span of his thick shoulders, the narrowness of his waist and curve of his ass in the tight uniform pants. Clint’s mouth was watering like crazy, a low ache swelling fast the longer he stared and—

The holo vanished.

“Hey! I was watching that!”

“Like what you saw?”

“What? Maybe. No! What’re you—”

“Should I bring you to Bucky’s room?”

“Yeah. Yes. Or maybe he could come here, since standing isn’t happening right now.”

“But you’d like to see him?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Why?”

“I. I don’t know.”

“Are you worried about him?”

“…No…”

“Then why? Cause his ass looks good in those pants?”

“Well, yeah but—”

Bruce’s raised eyebrows stopped him.

“Clint, you’re straight.”

“I know that!”

“So why are you staring at Bucky’s ass?”

“It’s a nice ass! It’s a free country! I don’t know.”

“Do you know who you were all fighting out there on Bleeker Street? Who knocked you all unconscious with magical arrows?” He waited a beat. “Eros, the god of lust.”

“Oh. …Oh. Well, fuck.”

“Indeed.”

*

The holo projection came up in each of the rooms, which Clint realized as soon as Bruce began to speak.

“Peter, Bucky, Steve, Clint, and Stephen. At this point we’ve spoken to each of you individually and have made some assessments based on the data collected. We’ve been able to conclude a few things, but there’s still a lot we don’t know.”

Bruce held up a hand. “Don’t. Don’t try to ask questions right now. Your audio is muted. Please, just let me try to explain.

“There have been some complications. Physically, you’re all fine. Even those of you without healing abilities. But you’re all under the effects of magic we’ve never seen in action before. The only physical symptom of it is a faint blood-red shimmer in your irises, but psychologically, you’ve all affected. The arrows that hit you seem to have caused you to each fixate on a single person who was in your nearby vicinity when you were struck. This fixation is driven by lust, as is expected since it was Eros that attacked you.

“We don’t yet know how extreme your behavior will be, if the fixation will intensify over time, or lessen, or when. It has yet to be determined if this situation will change, or if it’s at all possible to counter the effects. We believe the attack was meant to destabilize the team in order to weaken us and make us vulnerable to future attempts. Your jobs moving forward are to help us as much as possible by managing your own behavior and helping us to both rid you of these affects and also to counter any further attacks by Eros or his associates.

“Now, here’s what we know. Stephen has alerted us that Eros is currently at odds with his father, Ares, god of war, which explains some of why he targeted us, though most of their interactions have been taking place on alternate timelines or parallel realities rather than our own. Stephen had been monitoring their activities from a distance as a precaution. This was noticed and he was pursued. Given the display of power, being able to observe multiple planes of reality at once, Eros seemed to think Stephen could have his missing weapon, or already had possession of it.

“When Eros investigated further, learning of the Avengers initiative, he began to see us as agents of his father, given how often we’re battling enemies of all kinds. Eros believes if we were _his_ agents instead, it would give him some advantage. But, he is the god of lust, so he’s a passionate guy and his intentions are a little messy. He was under the impression Stephen possessed the bow of Eros, but when he couldn’t find it, and Stephen insisted he didn’t possess it, Eros tried to take Stephen for further interrogation and to assist his cause on a more one-on-one, and uh, _physical_ basis. We have little doubt Eros will try to come back for you, Stephen. And I can see your reaction—no that’s not good news.

“Which brings me to the rest of it,” Bruce confessed with a sigh. “Stephen, your fixation is on Eros, himself. This obviously complicates our need to keep you away from him, when all you want is to be close to him. To that end, we’ve taken measures to prevent you leaving the Tower, for your own safety. I’m sorry. Wong has enacted a total magical blackout over the whole building, to also help prevent Eros from using his own magic to slip in and take you.

“For the rest of you, I’m sharing this information so we can all help protect each other, not to embarrass you. Though we’re not entirely sure you’re even capable of embarrassment right now… The reason why _I’m_ delivering this message rather than Tony is because both Steve and Peter have become fixated on him. Steve, as we’ve said, that’s why we’ve removed both you and Tony from command. Peter, being a teenager with superpowers, I hope you can understand our concern for your safety as well as Tony’s.

“Clint and Bucky.” Bruce sighed heavily. “Your complication is that you’re fixated on each other. The spell doesn’t seem to care if the person it affects is heterosexual or homosexual or any other orientation. Given Bucky’s abilities, and, um, determination—sorry, Buck—we’ve been concerned about Clint, who doesn’t currently have the ability to consent, despite how he might feel, or what he might say, and despite you both being adults.

“Natasha is on her way back from her undercover mission in Slovakia. T’Challa, Fury, Wanda, and Vision are all working on the problem from remote locations. If Eros returns, he’ll be aiming for the Tower, so we don’t want to bring any more of the team here than necessary.”

Bruce stopped, looking to someone off-screen. He nodded, then continued, “You’re all presenting as logical and reasonable, which in a way makes this harder. We’ll give you the benefit of the doubt by letting you leave your rooms, but there are conditions. First, we’ll want to see you all together in the conference room on your current floor in twenty minutes. Please prove to us that you can exist in the same room as the person you’re fixated on while managing your own behavior. Do not approach anyone. There will be no touching of anyone, under any circumstances. No handshakes. No hugs. Nothing.

“Second, we’ll be pairing you up with someone who’s not under the influence of Eros to help us keep an eye on any progression of the affects. Granted, we all have jobs still to do, so we can’t have someone with you at all times, which leads me to... Third, FRIDAY will be monitoring you at all times, and will alert us if anyone seems in danger. Full security protocols have been activated for the whole building. And no, none of you may leave the Tower just yet. Thanks, and see you soon.”

Clint walked up to the mirror above the sink and stared at his reflection, at the tiny dancing pinpricks of bloody light in his eyes.

He really did feel totally normal. That was the weirdest part.

Logically, he knew he wasn’t into guys at all. He also accepted that he was intensely attracted to Bucky, and was thinking about him way more than he ever had before. Even when he tried to plan ways to break out of the Tower, his thoughts kept slipping away to memories of how hot Bucky always looked in his uniform, or memories of times he’d seen Bucky half-dressed in the locker rooms.

It should have been freaking him out more than it was. Which was yet another reason to freak out.

He splashed cold water on his face, scrunching his nose at the ugly bruise on his jaw from falling out of bed, and the aching lump on his skull from hitting the pavement during the attack.

The only clothes he had were his uniform and some scrubs. Knowing he’d be in a room with Bucky momentarily, and unsure of what his body’s reaction to that would be, he opted for the reassuring confines of the uniform.

Natasha was never going to let him hear the end of this.

Also, poor Tony.

Closing his eyes with a small prayer for the sake of his endangered pride and sanity, bracing himself for the clusterfuck of what he was about to experience, Clint turned and headed for the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: This chapter is the reason for the dubious consent & consent issues tags.

It was safe to say the room was tense.

Tony had one of his autonomous suits in each corner of the room. Standing at the head of the long conference table, Tony wore his armored glove, the blaster glowing as it was charged and ready. He looked more rigid than Clint had ever seen him before. There was a pile of metallic silver cuffs on the center of the table. Sam moved to stand between Steve and Tony. Rhodey stood between Peter and Tony on the other side of the table. Bruce stuck by Clint, bringing him around to stand with Tony, as far away from Bucky as possible. Wong stood with Stephen.

The guards walked Bucky in last. His gaze locked to Clint right away, skimming down to the bruise on his jaw, then farther down his body in a way that brought a whole lot of heat to Clint’s skin. He’d been tossed aside like a rag doll by the Winter Soldier in battle before—not that a spell had made Bucky revert to that state again—and he knew what the guy was physically capable of. In hand-to-hand combat, Clint might as well go up against Hulk as go up against Bucky. There was just too much imbalance, with or without the vibranium arm.

He knew all of this, all the logical arguments to be afraid. Hell, all the hairs on his body were standing on end from the power of Bucky’s stare alone. Yet, instinct had him a breath away from sinking to his knees and crawling across the floor to lick the guy’s leather boots.

“Fuck me, I guess,” Clint groaned to himself, wiping a hand over his eyes.

“What?” Bruce frowned.

“Oh nothing. I’m just screwed.”

“Yeah, join the club,” Tony said with a completely masked expression. He looked pale, his eyes glassy and red like he hadn’t slept.

“Right. Sorry, Tony.” Clint glanced over at Peter, saw the moon-eyes the kid was giving Stark and was reminded again how goddamned young he was, especially compared to the rest of them. Peter had opted for scrubs and was swimming in them, his hands folded purposefully over his crotch. Knowing what the kid was capable of tactically speaking, and the depth of the connection already there between them with how diligently Stark had always tried to protect him, Tony was screwed indeed.

And then there was Steve.

All of Steve’s attention was on Tony, and he looked like at any moment he’d easily push everyone else in the room aside to carve a path right to him. Steve’s eyes were dark in a way that made Clint feel he was intruding just to witness it.

When Bucky walked in—polite as always—for just a second Steve instinctively turned to him, extending a hand in greeting.

Stark’s blaster charged as he extended his glove. “No, no. No touching. Good boys.”

“Tony, I’m not—”

“Uh-uh.”

“I’m just saying—”

“Don’t test me, Rogers. Last warning.”

Steve let the hand fall, giving Bucky a once-over of concern, then focusing back on Tony again. “Are you okay? You look like you need some rest.”

“Yeah, Mr. Stark,” Peter chimed in. “I’ve just wanted to, uh, I’ve been so worried and I’m really so, so sorry for all of the trouble, really.”

“Bruce, I’m _begging you_ to get on with it,” Tony muttered.

“Right,” Bruce started. “I need you each to take one of the cuffs from the table and attach it around your left ankle. It’ll reassure us of your vital signs and location once we leave here.”

Steve picked one up, glanced at Bucky, then held up the cuff. “Are these armed?”

“Not yet,” Tony warned. “But they sure could be.”

“Armed?” Peter asked softly, eyes wide.

“To tase or otherwise incapacitate us at a moment’s notice, should we misbehave,” Steve explained.

“But Mr. Stark wouldn’t hurt us like that! We didn’t do anything wrong. We just—”

“Peter, it’s fine,” Tony sighed. “They’re not armed. We’re just working in the dark here. We’re trying to protect you as well as the rest of us. If you woke up tomorrow good as new, we don’t want you to have done something to give you nightmares about for the rest of your life.”

“Tony, I hope you know I’d never hurt you,” Steve told him. “Especially not like that. Just because our emotions or hormones are amplified right now doesn’t mean we’ve lost our moral compass.”

“Yeah, well, prove it.”

“I will.”

No one was moving. Clint stepped forward and grabbed one of the cuffs, crouched and started to latch it on.

Bucky finally spoke up. “Clint, don’t,” he warned, frowning and stepping forward. Steve’s arm shot out to block him as several guns pointed in Bucky’s direction. Bucky raised his arms and stepped back, locking eyes with Clint, who snapped the cuff on and felt it automatically adjust to tighten against his skin. With that done, Clint stood up straight.

“I trust them,” he said.

Tony waved an arm. “Great. Progress. Anyone else feeling cooperative?”

Peter went next. Then Stephen. Then Steve.

Steve turned. “Please, Buck?”

“You know I don’t trust him,” Bucky muttered to Steve.

“Do you want to stay locked in the room under guard, or do you want to show them they can trust you? We’re in this for the long haul. Both of us.” He still hesitated, so Steve pointed to Clint and added, “He’s watching. You want him to trust you?”

Bucky growled and grabbed the cuff. Once it was attached, the tension in the room eased fractionally. Stephen Strange cleared his throat, arms folded over his robes, his somewhat creepy living cape gone for the time being. “I just wanted to apologize to everyone for getting us all into this,” he told them. “This was my fight, my problem. You were all coming to my aid and it was never my intention for the fallout to affect so many. I swear to each of you, I’ll do everything in my power to fix this. I’ve always been excellent at compartmentalizing things. The way the spell draws me to Eros is completely detached from my commitment to your safety.”

“Can you find this bow he’s after?” Clint asked.

“Well,” Stephen replied with a small smile, “I can sure as hell try my best.”

*

Rhodey stayed with Peter. Sam stayed with Steve. Bruce stayed with Clint. Wong stayed with Stephen. Bucky stayed with Sam and Steve until Natasha was able to return.

It was a good enough system, especially since FRIDAY watched over everyone to fill in the gaps when someone’s assigned babysitter had a mission or was asleep or was otherwise unavailable. Stephen hung out with Stark whenever Wong left the premises to further investigate Eros. Stark, for the most part, stayed locked away in his penthouse, surrounded by his robo-soldiers.

But lust found a way.

Clint started to hang out with Peter to help assure him everything was gonna be fine. This went a long way toward putting Rhodey at ease. Rhodey dropped his guard fast after the first long visit. By the second, Clint and Peter had figured out how to hack the cuffs, programming them to feed in a randomized set of location points within the Tower, and a steady stream of vitals within normal ranges for each of them. They made sure to always wear the cuffs around their sitters, and found secure places out of range of FRIDAY’s scanners to hide them the rest of the time. It was also a collaborative effort to map out FRIDAY’s blind spots, both inside and outside the building. Spiderkid quickly took to moving around close to the glass on the building’s exterior while engaging his suit’s new stealth mode features. Clint was fond of the ductwork in the ceilings.

Clint knew he was being a terrible influence, but come on. The kid was seventeen, so within the legal age of consent in the state of New York. Clint had lost his virginity at thirteen, and would have bet Stark’s entire fortune the guy had been nowhere near the legal threshold when he’d become sexually active, so they both had no room to talk. Plus, Pete legitimately loved Stark. Anyone could see it. And there wasn’t a malicious bone in his petite body. Clint knew Tony would figure it out. He’d be fine.

Four days after they were released from the med bay, Clint had finally checked off the three goals on his list: ditch the tracker, figure out how to get to Bucky without raising alarms, and learn when Bruce’s scheduled lab time overlapped with Sam and Steve’s absence for their daily jog.

Clint still felt normal. He kept telling himself he wasn’t obsessed with Bucky so much as bored enough to be completely preoccupied with curiosity about what would happen if they were alone together. Plus, Clint hadn’t gotten laid in a solid year. It had been a long dry spell, and he was willing to endure some hardcore mortification with a semi-trusted co-worker in order to end it.

Plus, his judgment had always been for shit.

Especially when it was really only literally his own ass on the line.

Whatever happened, he was sure it was going to be fine.

*

Natasha was due to return before the day was out. Then, Bucky would be watched day and night by the one person Clint hated to have to outmaneuver. It was time to move forward with the plan.

Bucky was three levels down and on the other side of the building. After a scenic tour of the air ducts and a quick slide down the lines in the elevator shaft, followed by some more duct-crawling, Clint landed inside Bucky’s bathroom.

Since it was always polite to knock first when visiting someone, Clint knocked on the closed door and waited.

Telltale heavy footfalls trailed over to where he leaned against the doorframe and he smiled when it swung open.

“You can’t be here,” Bucky stared, his eyes widening.

“So they tell me. I felt we should talk. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never found fear to be a big motivator. I’m not scared of you, Barnes.”

“You should be.”

“Why?”

Bucky sputtered. “I-I’ve hurt people. You know that. Everyone knows that.”

“Are you gonna hurt _me_?”

“Of course not,” he frowned, glancing around as if for cameras, or maybe paparazzo.

“Well, there you go. Nice bathroom, by the way. This thing’s massive! The perks of being Captain America, I guess. You know they don’t have cameras in here?” He thumbed back to the huge Jacuzzi tub, the walk-in shower, the oval-shaped table stacked with fluffy white towels in the center under a tasteful light fixture, a small couch, and long double-vanity.

Bucky closed his eyes, frowning. His hands went to cover his face, his chest heaving. He began muttering to himself, “I promised. I promised I wouldn’t. Need to obey, or they’ll hurt me. They’ll hurt him.”

“Hey.” Instantly concerned, Clint reached for him. The first touch of skin on skin brought with it a dizzying wave of something absolutely primal and impossible to ignore. Clint’s hand fell away from Bucky’s arm as Bucky’s hands fell from his face, revealing eyes even brighter with the glimmers of red.

Clint took a backward step and Bucky pursued, closing the door behind them.

Clint’s thoughts wiped out, his mind blank, the only thing in his awareness the voice of instinct telling him to yield, spread, and beg.

“Fuck,” he breathed, fighting for sense, flushing with shame at the role his desire insisted he play. Was that him or the spell?

A cold, metal hand was braced on his hip, a warm touch of flesh moving along his jaw, and a wall connected with his back as Bucky manhandled him against it. Bucky nuzzled Clint’s neck, breathing him in with a soft moan. When Clint took a deeper breath of his own, the rich, heady scent of Bucky’s skin—probably filled with magical pheromones or some damn thing—filled his head, prying away more of his protections and safeguards.

“Buck, you with me?” Clint asked, his voice unsteady.

Bucky growled, teeth scraping below Clint’s ear, blood rushing in a torrent to swell Clint’s cock. Shifting, Bucky let his soft, full lips brush feather-light against Clint’s, giving him a fleeting second to savor both it and the hard shiver of want it caused. Then, Bucky’s head angled more sharply, his thumb pressing at the hinge of Clint’s jaw to open him wide and lick deeply into his mouth. A breathy, helpless whimper slipped free of Clint as it only got more intense from there. He basically just endured it, both of his hands pressing uselessly against Bucky’s shoulders.

He was still dazed from the tongue-fucking when he realized Bucky had stopped and pulled back to observe Clint’s lust-addled expression.

“Your eyes,” Bucky said, glancing between them.

“Yeah, yours too. It’s a form of mind control, isn’t it?”

Darkness moved behind Bucky’s unnaturally glittering eyes, a force too deep and real to be touched by magic; a pain that wouldn’t be shifted for anything, any god.

It made Clint instantly horrified with himself to have put Bucky in such a position.

Blessed sanity was once more in his grasp. Kind of.

“Go. Run. Please. I won’t hurt you by making you do things, okay?” Clint told him, fighting desperately to get the words out. It felt like being swallowed by quicksand. “Go and I’ll leave. They’ll never know I was here. You’ll be safe.”

They’d both been there—with Loki and HYDRA. Bucky’s tortures lasted way longer and took place in far worse circumstances, but Clint had been there all the same, acting as a puppet with no will of his own, doing terrible things he had no ability to stop.

Pain sharpened in Bucky’s sweet face, breaking through the want, and Clint hated himself for causing it. But then Bucky was gathering him closer, tucking their bodies together in a complete hug. His hand cupped the back of Clint’s head, holding it against his shoulder. One leg slid between Clint’s thighs and the other hooked around the back of his lower leg.

“I am safe,” Bucky murmured. “You’re not making me do anything.”

“No, I am.”

The hand on his head caressed so gently through his hair, stirring more tingling shivers as it brushed down the back of his neck. He was covered in goosebumps, every inch of his skin oversensitive and overheated. More than anything—definitely more than he wanted to leave—Clint craved Bucky’s touch, his attention, and his passion. He needed Bucky to fill him up and break him down.

Bucky rubbed down the curve of Clint’s back to his waist where the warm hand slipped up beneath the hem of his shirt, the fingertips skimming over bare skin. It felt shocking, obscene, and as necessary as breathing. That sensation alone obliterated any chance Clint had of fighting it.

Utterly without the ability to stop himself, Clint rolled his hips. Bucky’s thick, firm thigh pressed up to connect with his crotch, giving him something to grind against, his hand rubbing hard over Clint’s ass to squeeze as he thrust sharply against Bucky.

“You’re hard,” Bucky sighed, catching Clint’s earlobe in his teeth.

“Yeah, I’m also straight. As you can tell,” he gasped, biting off an aching moan, “this is doing nothing for me.”

Bucky laughed. “I heard. So, you’ve never once even tried…?”

“A guy kissed me once when I was undercover. I didn’t hate it.”

Bucky kept rocking his thigh against Clint’s erection, drawing a breathy noise that caused a ripple of tension in Bucky’s massive, solid body, his grip on Clint’s ass urging on his movements.

It was easy, felt so right. And that’s what scared him enough to cry, “Wait. Please. Stop. Please stop.”

Bucky let go, took a single step back.

Clint covered his face with his hands and groaned. “What the fuck am I doing? It keeps telling me to let you, and I don’t—”

“What’s telling you?” Bucky frowned.

“I don’t know! I don’t know if it’s me or the spell.”

“What’s it telling you to do?”

“Can’t you tell?” Bucky waited for a real answer, so Clint averted his gaze and said, “Give in. Yield. Spread. Beg.”

When he glanced back, he saw the color had flared in Bucky’s eyes before he closed them and twisted his face away.

“What’s it telling _you_?” Clint asked.

“Take. Claim. Devour. Command.”

It should have scared him; a distant part of Clint’s psyche knew. But the much larger part of him just felt the heady wave of pure desire roll through like some really fucking good drugs. He knew his eyes were shining brighter now too as his resistance crumbled.

He asked, “Have you done this? With men?”

It was so quiet around them, no sound of anyone else at all anywhere nearby. He didn’t know if that was good or terrifying.

Bucky nodded slightly.

“Oh. When? Are you, you know. Gay?”

A shrug. “During the war, I fooled around with guys. Wasn’t a big deal at the time. We were all pretty sure we were gonna die. But I don’t know what it means now. I had girlfriends before that. Recently, I’ve been kind of busy. It’s been a while.”

“Steve?”

The expression on Bucky’s face made Clint laugh. “So that’s a no.”

“He’s my brother. I would never,” Bucky said with disgust.

“Good.”

“Yeah?” He bit at his lip, giving Clint a funny look.

“What?”

“I’ve fantasized about you,” Bucky said, gaze fallen to the floor. “Before this. Before the spell.”

Clint’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

“It’s embarrassing,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes at himself.

“Yeah, how dare you anyway?” he teased. “Am I just that charming? Robin Hood fetish or something?”

“Something like that,” Bucky said shyly. “Plus your ass is pretty incredible.”

“Likewise.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow at him. Clint pointed at his own eyes. “What? At least I have an excuse.”

He felt he might die if Bucky didn’t go back to touching him soon. Blowing out a breath, turning his back and facing the wall, Clint tried to get it together. His cock was throbbing. He itched to be touched. Wanton pleas sat right on the tip of his tongue, barely held inside. But, he was still scared. Was that normal or a bad sign?

Maybe it didn’t have to be a big deal. He’d had one-night stands plenty of times. Casual sex of all sorts. In fact, that was his normal. How was this different? Sure, they worked together, but Clint put his life in Bucky’s hands all the time. He’d proven himself trustworthy. Clint knew he was a good person.

“Are you gonna leave?” Bucky asked quietly.

“I can’t,” Clint exhaled desperately, feeling torn in half.

“Tell me to leave.”

Clint shook his head. Squeezed his eyes shut. Made a fist and pushed it against the wall until his knuckles ached, the pain welcome, clarifying, and needed.

He heard Bucky move, saw out of the corner of his eye as his shirt floated to the floor.

Then heat was right at Clint’s back, a breath ghosting over his neck. With a heavy exhale, Clint felt every inch of his skin tingle and tighten in response, his body undulating slightly purely in anticipation of intimate contact.

“Tell me to stop. I need you to, Clint. You have to.”

He couldn’t. He didn’t even try.

“Touch me,” he begged.

His shirt was drawn up and off of him. Hands guided his arms up, gathered both his wrists in a cold metal hand that pulled them up and pinned them to the wall, stretching out Clint’s now-helpless body for exploration.

Honestly, he couldn’t fucking wait.

Lips sucked a kiss under his ear, then licked over the spot as a hand cupped the stiff line of his aching cock through his jeans, kneading it.

Clint let out a guttural moan. Bucky nudged Clint’s feet farther apart. A thick line of hardness rocked against the crease of his ass, and he arched, tilting his hips in offering and pushed back into the next thrust. The hand gripping his cock released. He heard fabric tear, felt cool air kiss his dick as he was eased free, then the jeans slipped down to reveal his lack of underwear.

The hand cupped his balls, rubbing small circles on the sensitive skin. Held in place, unable to escape or get any relief, body racked with small tremors, breath ragged, Clint adored every second of it, every facet. To be so exposed in the bright light of the bathroom, with someone with so much power over him, literally with his most vulnerable part being slowly, thoroughly fondled, was the most decadent experience of powerlessness in his life. How had he never known how good this could feel?

Mentally sinking down into the reflex to submit, with burning want coiling low in his body, Clint found himself to be nothing but willing and pliant.

He heard the sounds he was making— nervous and aroused in equal measure—just as he heard Bucky’s whispers by his ear, almost too low to hear.

“Beautiful. Doing so well.”

Teeth scraped against the junction of his neck and shoulder.

“You’re so good for me.”

A callused finger made a hard, dragging press against the space behind his balls.

“Thank you for giving me this.”

A gentle but prolonged tug on his sac.

“You feel so good. I want you so fucking much, just like this.”

A twist and squeeze.

“Perfect. You’re perfect.”

Lips on his neck and a clothed erection sliding against his bare ass.

“Love feeling you letting me. Should I suck you? Lick you?” One finger traced a path over his balls, drawn up full and tight. “Lick you right here?”

Clint’s cries had grown louder the more Bucky whispered, and the hand stretching him up almost on his toes was the only thing keeping him upright, his knees weakening along with the rest of him. He writhed, caught between Bucky’s body and his hand. Couldn’t stop. Never wanted it to end.

But then it turned another corner when the edge of Bucky’s thumb stroked up the length of Clint’s straining cock, pushing through thick drips of pre-come. A finger stroked more completely up the pulsing vein twisting up the shaft to the soaking head. A fingernail leisurely pried open the sensitive slit and the pad of another finger rubbed back and forth over the sensitive spot under the ridge of the head. Clint’s cries gained a more desperate, rougher tone.

“You’re so wet. Come on, let me hear you. Beg me.”

Wordlessly, he did. It was hoarse and broken.

“Louder.”

Pulled up even farther, onto the tips of his toes, his soaking cock twitched and Clint’s pleading yell split the air.

“That’s it. Good boy. So pretty when you beg. Should I let you come? You want it? Come on, show me.”

Clint shuddered, restless, trying somehow for more contact or friction, but Bucky just kept tugging open his slit and tracing over his tip. Everything slid further from Clint’s grasp. More thick, clear drips rolled down his ridge to his shaft as the tip of Bucky’s tongue traced up the side of Clint’s neck and then around the shell of his ear. The thumb swiped over his cockhead. Bucky brought it up to his lips and sucked the taste of Clint from it with a moan, only to return the thumb to its target right away, still circling, still watching Clint fall apart, encouraging every part of it.

Mentally detaching, letting go more completely, Clint was barely listening, existing purely as sensation and instinctive reaction. Bucky kept coaxing him, guiding him to do it, and to obey him completely was effortless.

A caress along his aching cock, “What do you want?”

“More.”

“Beg.”

“Please…”

“What should I do to you?”

“Everything.”

“Say please.”

“Bucky, _please_.”

The caresses spanned outward. Clint was a trembling, dripping, animalistic wreck. Bucky’s free hand slid down his thigh, pushing the jeans even lower, then slid up through the hollow of his hips, over his stomach stretched long and tight, across his heaving chest, circled his neck to press at his pulse point, stroked through the stubble over his jaw, and brushed over his parted, quivering lips. Two fingers pressed in to find his tongue, which licked greedily at them. They slid back to fill his mouth. He sucked them automatically, wrapping them with his tongue. They pulled out, reached back and spread his cheeks, traced his clenched, virgin hole. Clint let his head fall forward, panting.

The metal arm lowered him fractionally.

“Arch your back. More. Good. Beautiful.” The fingers at his opening pressed, almost hard enough to part the muscle and push through his rim. “Scares you, huh?”

“Please…”

The fingers pulled him open, as one traced through the oversensitive center. Anticipating what came next, Clint’s breathing grew even more rapid and shallow, his head spinning.

“You’re still tense. Let go. Let me in.”

“God. Fuck. I want it.”

“Show me.”

“ _Bucky_.”

The extent of his light-headedness intensified his disorientation as everything moved. He was lifted, laid back as towels were shoved aside, his jeans removed, his legs pressed back and thighs spread. When he felt Bucky lick up over his sac and then take his balls into his mouth to suck, Clint threw his head back and screamed, hoarse and low. His hands flew to Bucky’s long hair, taking handfuls of it to try and steady himself. Bucky gave a tight, complete stroke up Clint’s wet cock. Then a thick finger pressed slowly through his hole to fill him, pumping so gently in and out that Clint sobbed in relief and ecstasy.

Distantly, he heard the crash of a door ricocheting off a wall, heard thunderous footsteps approaching, but he was gone. He wasn’t even there. He was purely Bucky’s, and Bucky was his.

The bathroom door flew open and Bruce raged, “Get the fuck off of him, now!”

There was a low, ominous growl before he repeated the cry, his voice deepening rapidly, “Get off! OFF!”

Bucky, possibly driven by a stronger instinct of self-preservation, stopped and stood. He wiped his mouth and chin dry and then raised both hands, deliberately putting himself between a rapidly transforming Bruce and naked, spread, mentally-broken Clint.

Hulk grabbed Bucky and yanked him out of the room, throwing him toward the bedrooms. There was an ear-splitting roar of fury and a door slammed shut. For Clint, the bitter cold wash of lust’s ebbing tide was brutal. Bare, terrified, alone, he curled up into a tight ball on the tabletop, hands over his head. Hulk scooped him up without fanfare and carried him out of the apartment.

Down the hall, up the stairwell, down another hall and through a door they went, with Clint shivering and shaken. He was placed in a bed—his bed, then covered with a blanket. Hulk sat down with his back to the bed, facing the door, and stayed there as Clint cried silently and stayed curled up as tight as he could get.

*

Bruce walked in carrying a tall glass of cold water in one hand and a steaming mug of coffee in the other. He set the mug down on the nightstand and passed Clint the water. “Hydrate, then caffeinate.”

“Thanks,” Clint muttered miserably, tugging the blankets closer around him and burrowing down inside. He was still on the bed, now sitting cross-legged, feeling numb, hollow, and strange.

Bruce sat down beside him and let his hand rest on Clint’s back. His voice gentle, he said, “Sorry, Hulk’s not so great at aftercare. He’s really protective of you right now. Actually, he was really reluctant to let me take over.”

Clint glanced once, quickly, at Bruce’s face, but then had to look away again. He drank some of the water, feeling like the ground wasn’t quite as solid under him as it should have been. “It wasn’t like that. With Bucky.”

“Wasn’t it?”

Clint had no reply, so Bruce said, “I saw your eyes. Both of you. There’s a reason it got intense, just like there’s a reason you feel the way you do right now. Bucky was not in a state of mind to take proper care of you, or make necessary safety precautions.”

“Bruce…”

“You were the vulnerable one in there. Naked. Powerless. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me if someone did that to Natasha, you wouldn’t be just as mad as I was.”

Clint drew the glass of water into his blanket cocoon, then pulled the blankets up over his head. When Bruce circled his other arm around him and folded him into a loose hug, Clint reluctantly leaned into it, feeling something unknot in his chest as he did.

After a while, with both of them sitting there in silence, Clint sipping the water, then switching to coffee, he felt more compelled to defend Bucky.

“He didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t even want me there. I’m the one that snuck in. I put myself in his space.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“No, you don’t get it—”

“I know you think that, but I do.”

“No, he… he’s a good guy. This isn’t his fault either. Everything he did, I wanted. I still want him. I can’t… is he okay? Did anyone check on him?”

“Yeah. Steve talked to him. And Sam. He’s rattled and drained, like you are, but he’s okay. He keeps asking about you.” Bruce took a breath. “Clint?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you understand why I keep saying you can’t consent? Did you feel completely in control of what was happening to you in there?”

He scanned his memory, the tangled web of emotions and reactions of everything from the time he spent alone with Bucky. “No, I… I understand,” Clint decided. “It kept getting away from me, like I was losing control. But I did tell him to stop at one point, and he stopped right away.”

“And then what? You changed your mind? Or did you lose your grip again, after you said stop?”

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

“It would be a little different if one of you wasn’t under the influence of the spell, and had clearer judgment. With both of you… it’s just too murky. I won’t risk you to it, no matter how good of a guy Bucky is. You can hate me for it if you want. You both can. I can live with that. What I can’t live with, is standing by while Bucky rapes you.”

That word sent a rush of frigid cold tension through him.

Clint let the steam from the mug slip over his face, the slight tremble of his hands causing the coffee’s surface to quiver.

“What are we gonna do?” he asked after a long pause.

“We’ll figure it out. You’re not alone, okay?”

“Okay. Bruce?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you,” Clint told him, making painful eye contact. “I mean it. I appreciate you doing all of this.”

“Eh, that’s what friends are for,” Bruce replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: None of this chapter was planned ahead of time. Much like Clint, I was just curious what would happen if I threw them together. And in the process discovered how deeply hot Protective!Bruce/Hulk can be :D
> 
> Coming up next: We’ll see how Tony, Steve, and Peter are doing with all of this…
> 
> Chapter 3 (which I LOVE) will be posted on Thursday!


	3. Chapter 3

Sometimes Tony’s best ideas were the ones everyone else said were insane or would likely get him killed. Any brainstorm that tested abysmally in its first draft state still had some hidden potential buried in there somewhere. Part of his genius had always been the quote unquote impossible scenarios. Take the whole Afghanistan nightmare as exhibit A. The very existence of the arc reactor technology, not to mention the fact that it had been conceived and initially constructed literally in a cave, was all the proof he needed that anything could be done if the correct pressure was applied to the right points.

At the moment, Tony was under one hell of a lot of pressure, to some of his most vulnerable points. That meant it was time for a miracle to happen.

The real problem was the kid. The seventeen-year-old who trusted him above all others with his safety, who was still in high school for god’s sake, who had gotten injured in the line of duty in a way all the technology in the world couldn’t fix. Possibly ever. The kid whose life Tony needed to protect even more than his own but now couldn’t even be alone in a room with, who was locked in his tower like a goddamned Disney princess, which of course just made Tony the monster.

Peter, however, was not your run of the mill Disney princess. Past the big, innocent eyes and propensity for getting himself in trouble, he was at least as smart as Tony, and more slippery than the world’s worst computer virus.

Tony had tried everything to keep the kid out of danger, but it wasn’t working. He needed reinforcements.

Tony had spent a couple of weeks working the problem, day and night, and the only solid plan he had was possibly his worst one ever.

FRIDAY gave it a ninety percent likelihood of failure, which was the best news Tony’d had all day.

He hadn’t told anyone, since every scenario in which he did only increased the failure rate, plus just the idea of breathing a word of this to Bruce or Pepper gave him a migraine and sent him reeling toward a full-blown panic attack.

Thus, enter stage left, Steven Grant Rogers.

Wearing a white t-shirt at least eight sizes too small, nipples clearly armed and ready, and a pair of jeans so tight Tony could practically hear the man’s sperm count decreasing.

“You know, when I got your message,” Steve began, walking slowly but steadily Tony’s way, “I thought it was Bucky pranking me, all the way up until FRIDAY actually let me get on your private elevator.”

Tony downed the rest of his scotch and made sure to keep the granite kitchen island between them, muttering to himself, “Christ, I am _so_ gonna regret this.” He raised his voice and called, “Yeah, that’s far enough thanks. This is what you’d call a trust-building exercise, where as long as you follow direct orders, I don’t initiate some severely uncomfortable consequences.”

“You can trust me, Tony,” Steve assured him, smirking.

“Convincing,” Tony countered, “especially with the totally normal glowing red eyes you’ve got going there to back it up.”

Steve had, however, stopped when commanded. Point one for Tony.

“Looks like you’re having issues with your dryer, what with how all of your clothing appears to be child-sized.”

“Hey, Tony, my eyes are up here,” Steve said, his smirk growing. He teased his lip between his teeth and gave Tony a look so dirty, it well surpassed anything he’d seen over the long, sordid course of his life on even his most devious and enthusiastic lovers.

Damn it. Point one for Steve.

Steve folded his arms under his gigantic pectorals, stretching the poor t-shirt so much, Tony was amazed it didn’t instantly disintegrate.

Tony told himself he wasn’t staring, and he definitely wasn’t starting to sweat or get hard.

“So about those severely uncomfortable consequences…” Steve led.

“Right. Those. FRIDAY, initiate test sequence for the neuter Cap protocol.”

Above and around them, FRIDAY replied, “Protocol test sequence initiated.”

A solid dozen of the autonomous suits marched out from a few areas to surround them, covering all exits, and several new small red lights danced on Steve’s forehead, chest, and back as the AI mapped his position and targeted him in its sites from weapons that lowered from the ceiling, and extended from the walls.

Steve glanced down and around at them, then looked up at the one tracking his forehead. “You’re really gonna shoot me in the head?”

“Tranquilizer dart strong enough to take down a few elephants, and I’d love to so don’t test me.”

“So why am I up here then? Hmm?”

Tony took off his glasses and set them aside on the counter, because he decided he would really rather not be able to see this too clearly. He ran a hand over his face and groaned. “Because there’s a situation, and you’re the only one properly motivated and able to do the job. Believe me, if there was any other option here, I’d take it.”

“What situation?” Steve frowned, and even with his vision blurry, he could see some of the red light fade from Steve’s eyes.

Awesome. Point two for Tony.

“FRIDAY, bring up the last set of video feeds.”

Tony took a second to observe Steve’s reaction, then averted his gaze to a suddenly fascinating spot on the granite, making sure to look nowhere near the feeds playing on a loop in the holograms projected over the countertop.

“Okay, turn it off,” Steve snapped, turning his back.

“Those are all from today. Did you catch the close-up shot of his personal computer?” Tony tapped his tablet to bring up just that feed loop.

“Yeah! Yeah, I caught it,” Steve said unhappily. Which was kind of fascinating in and of itself.

“Shouldn’t you be more captivated by it than this?” Tony wondered.

“Just because I was hit by that arrow doesn’t mean I suddenly forgot the difference between right and wrong. It’s clearly video from a hidden camera, planted without your knowledge or consent, which is pretty cut and dried as wrong to me.”

With all that he had and was, Tony willed himself to not find that as hot as he did.

He left it up another second, then shut down the holo, choosing instead to study Steve’s anger on his behalf.

“Wanna defend my honor, Cap?” Tony said dryly.

“I do, actually,” he said while a few veins throbbed along his neck and bulging arms when he flexed them.

“Do you know how often my lawyers have to try and pull those down? They’re a _plague_. If I allowed myself to give a shit about them, I’d have no energy left for anything else.”

“Why is Peter watching sex tapes of you?”

The fullness and sincerity of Tony’s laugh surprised both of them.

“‘Watching’. That’s kind of you. Come on, do I really need to spell this out?”

“No,” Steve sighed.

“I don’t blame him. None of this is his fault. With the lack of constant oversight at home, granted for understandable reasons, and the sudden lock-down here, things were always going to lead somewhere like this.”

“How often is he leaving the Tower?”

“Oh, constantly. He patrols. He moves around outside the building to get from floor to floor. He sneaks into my workshop to help fix projects I’ve left lying around as little gifts to me or something. He’s been passing messages between Barnes and Barton.” Steve groaned. “He’s helped them all hack the cuffs within the first few days, and I’ve been letting them get away with it just to see what they’d do with freedom. We still don’t know how extensive the effects of the spell are. But none of that’s the real problem here. I don’t—” he waved a hand, “I don’t care about the jerking off to sex tapes. He’s a teenager under the power of a lust spell. I’d be worried if he _wasn’t_ doing that. This. This is what I care about.”

He tapped the tablet to call up the photo pulled from Peter’s personal phone, linked to his social media and hook-up apps.

“Oh my god,” Steve breathed. Tony saw the color drain from his face. “Please tell me this isn’t—”

“Oh, it is,” Tony said with hollow levity. “This is a forty-three-year-old man who has a passing resemblance to yours truly, with a laundry list of convictions and is currently on the national sex offender watch list, who Peter has been going out to meet for sex in alleyways.”

Steve pulled out one of the stools at the counter and sank heavily into it, his hands covering his mouth.

“How long have you known?”

“Forty-five minutes. We got an alert that Parker came up on a facial recognition search. He was on foot two blocks from the tower. I traced him back to some incredibly stomach-churning security footage that showed him with this piece of shit.”

“We have to stop him.”

“Ya think?” Tony forced a deep breath past the rising nausea. “I contacted the authorities, but Peter’s at the age of consent, and New York’s finest aren’t exactly buying the whole ‘victim of a magical lust spell’ angle so they won’t touch it, even with the video evidence. There’s an outstanding warrant for petty theft on this fucker but they can’t hold him long on that alone. And even if they locked him up, Peter would just find another one. I have to talk to him about this, but I can’t…” Tony pulled at his hair, let go and instead grabbed his empty glass, somehow stopping short of smashing it against the wall, like he’d done a few others before Steve showed. “I can’t talk to him without help. And if I brought the whole team in on this, the kid would never forgive me, and this is already all my fault. I—”

“Hey. Tony, none of this is your fault,” Steve said firmly.

Tony felt the walls pressing in, the air thinning out, darkness crowding the edges of his vision. The glimpses he’d had of Peter in the alleyway, pinned to the filthy brick wall with his pants around his ankles and all of it, _all of it_ was on Tony. Peter would never have been anywhere near Eros if not for Tony specifically asking for his help that night and there was no forgiveness for something like this. Ever. He—

Unnaturally strong hands guided him gently into a hug, which felt like hugging a statue, but at least it was a warm statue.

Steve was still talking but none of it was registering. The touches though, to lightly smooth back Tony’s hair, to press lips to his temple, to hold him close and show him that at least he wasn’t alone anymore—they got through.

Tony started it. Something else to add to his ever-growing list of faults.

All it took was for him to lift his chin and angle his head a little, but it was unlike any kiss he’d ever experienced before, for several reasons.

First of all, it was Steve Rogers he was kissing, which on its own was a scenario he’d privately vowed would never, ever, _ever_ happen, even over Tony’s dead, rotting body just for the sake of his pride alone.

Second of all—and that’s as far as he got because he’d just unleashed the mother of all floodgates. As soon as their lips touched, the pure and virtuous Captain America instantly turned the dial all the way to filthy, pushing Tony up against the wall, tonguing him open wide, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood, the pace of it brutal and breathtaking and raunchy as fuck. He didn’t even feel Steve palm his ass and pick him up until he realized both of his legs were wrapped around Steve’s waist, his crotch grinding on the ripples of Steve’s immaculate abdominal muscles.

“Okay, stop! Put—put me down,” Tony panted, head spinning.

He was allowed to slide back down to Earth, getting his feet under him again, super delayed in realizing how tightly he’d been grabbing onto Steve’s swollen chest.

Clearing his throat, lips numb, jaw aching, and the luscious taste of dear old Cap all over his tongue, Tony smoothed his Metallica t-shirt and tried to remember what words were.

The kid. They were talking about the kid.

Right.

“Will you help me with Parker?” Tony asked, watching the dancing red shimmering in Steve’s blue eyes. “Help me keep him from meeting up with anyone else, help me keep him safe, and keep him from doing anything—with me or anyone else—that he’s gonna regret?”

“Of course, Tony. I’ll do whatever it takes,” Steve said with the kind of heartfelt earnestness that had been marketed and sold by the U.S. government since before Tony was a kid. “For you and for Peter.”

After half a beat, Tony nodded and waved him on, still out of breath. “Okay, good enough. Go. Let’s do this.”

Steve did not need to be told twice.

He only got the barest glimpse of Steve’s smile before his mouth was on Tony again, and his tongue in him, and his hand… yeah, his hand was inside Tony’s jeans, and Tony had barely enough time to be thankful the wrecked sounds he was making were at least being muffled by Steve trying to swallow him whole when Steve was now going to his knees and— yeah, that was Tony’s cock getting completely buried in the tight wet heat of Steve’s throat.

“Holy fucking—”

There was lube. Where the hell had he gotten lube?

Two wet fingers twisted up inside him, curling to target his prostate like Steve had trained on this in basic, which, hey, anything was possible.

Steve’s cheeks hollowed out and he clearly had no need to breathe, because he just kept swallowing around Tony’s cock, full lips pressed flush to the coarse, dark curls of pubic hair around Tony’s root, barely pulling off at all.

Between his yelling, growling, and futile attempts to use his hold on Steve’s head to control anything that was happening, Tony’s last few remaining brain cells—that hadn’t yet been hoovered out through his slit—knew there was something here he was missing. Something important. Something…

“Hey. Fucking Jesus god… dammit to… hey! _Hey_.”

Steve pulled off with a slurp, looking up through his golden lashes as he took a wide, slow lick up the shaft and over the head before sucking a kiss to the ridge. Tony took a breath to let the sight of that burn itself into his brain to haunt, torment, and arouse him until the end of time.

“Yeah?” Steve asked sweetly. The fingers inside him prodded once more at Tony’s gland, driving out an embarrassing choked whimper as Tony threw his head back into the wall behind him hard enough to see stars. The fingers drew slowly out, rubbed at his rim, then pulled away. Only then was Tony able to chance further eye contact.

“I should, uh, be trying to talk you out of this, right? I mean, you’d want to kill me if you had your head on straight right now and could see this.”

“You seriously think this is the first time I’ve wanted to bend you over something? That it’s just the spell? Come on, Tony, why do you think you drive me so crazy? Why have I stuck around despite it all?”

“Seriously?”

“Have you known me ever to lie?”

“Well. Okay. Yeah, okay then, cool, keep going.”

If anything could be said for Steve Rogers, it was that he could follow a direct order.

In the time it took Tony to blink, his jeans and boxer briefs were pulled completely off. Steve lifted him like he weighed nothing and laid him down on the granite counter, guiding Tony’s thighs to press against either side of Steve’s head as he sucked Tony back down, humming with pleasure that vibrated delightfully out through Tony’s body. Three fingers dripping with more lube slowly pushed through his hole and Tony’s breath choked completely off. His back arched, head thrown back, but Steve’s grip wrapping his thigh prevented him from even trying to go anywhere.

Just when Tony wanted him to speed it up, Steve slowed down, giving him unhurried, complete pulls with his bobbing mouth, lingering to press the head of Tony’s cock against the roof of his mouth with his tongue while gently finger-fucking him senseless. Then again, Steve probably knew he had him, and could take his time with the rest, damn him.

When he had Tony right up against his building climax, Steve pulled off and watched Tony rolling his hips to fuck himself down on Steve’s hand. Steve’s other hand pushed up over Tony’s body, gathering up his shirt to expose more of him, then grabbed him by the jaw as his mouth fell open around a particularly hard moan, rubbing through the stubble and facial hair before retreating to wrap the hand around Tony’s throat. A particularly hard jolt against his prostate made Tony scream, the hand gripping his throat tightly enough to leave light bruises but not enough to cut off his air or worry him much. When Steve let go, his fingers hooked to catch on the neck of Tony’s shirt, ripping it open. He rubbed an open palm down Tony’s exposed chest, brushing over then twisting the stiffened bud of his left nipple. Tony growled, so Steve did it again, pinching harder, until Tony’s eyes squeezed shut, brow furrowed, his mouth fallen open again around his gasps.

He let go to rub hard down Tony’s stomach and navel, then lower to hook around beneath his balls, pressing gently against and rolling them as his three buried fingers scissored apart. When Tony bucked, the pressure overwhelming, Steve tugged on his sac, keeping him still to take it. Pupils blown so wide, Tony couldn’t see any of the red glow, Steve bent to lick with just the tip of his tongue up Tony’s straining, flushed-dark erection to barely brush his lips against the pre-come-wet end.

“Beg for it,” Steve invited. “Ask nicely, and maybe I’ll let you come.”

Tony panted out the first syllable of ‘please’ a few times before he managed to get the whole word out.

Seeming satisfied with that, Steve manhandled him over onto his stomach, yanked him back, lined up and began the slow, steady push to enter him. Face pressed to the cool granite, Tony flinched at the initial stretch and writhed, grunting thickly as the pressure only deepened and grew. He planted his hands on the stone, but Steve held him easily down with a grip to the back of his neck and another on his hip. Tony’s pulse pounded in his ears as Steve watched him take every inch, Tony’s feet barely touching the ground.

When he was fully sheathed, Steve folded over him, flush to his back, scraping teeth and lips over Tony’s shoulders and neck as he gave him a moment to adjust. The size and rigidity of him was just as unnatural as the glowing eyes. A less proud man wouldn’t have hesitated to call the whole thing off then and there, but pain alone had never been enough to deter Tony from pursuing a goal.

Once satisfied that Tony could probably take it, Steve pulled back, pressed in, a private audience to Tony’s pleading, rasping shout and scramble to bear it, hiding his face against the gleaming surface.

“Again,” Steve growled softly, mouth moving against the back of Tony’s head, thrusting harder with his full length, making Tony cry out louder. He pressed a kiss as if in reward or praise, right beneath Tony’s right ear and whispered, “Still think you’re in control here?”

No. No, he really didn’t.

“I’ll take care of you,” Steve promised, his breath hot against Tony’s skin. “Any way you need. Let go and trust me. I won’t hurt you. Stop trying so hard to keep it all together. You don’t need to. Not anymore. Now, you’re mine.”

His thick, long, steely cock pulled back almost all the way, the head catching on Tony’s rim. Then he pressed slowly back in to the hilt with a thick, low moan. Tony’s eyes rolled and he impatiently met the next thrust. Steve’s hand reached around and gave a squeezing tug from root to tip along Tony’s cock, humming contentedly to find it still just as hard. He murmured praise as Tony convulsed and came hot and thick over Steve’s fingers, gasping for air.

Steve stroked him through it, until he was oversensitive and squirming from the continued stimulation, but Tony savored even that discomfort. He felt himself giving over, like Steve wanted, surrendering completely.

Feeling Tony’s relaxed state, Steve began taking him both harder and faster, fucking him at a merciless pace against the edge of the counter as Tony lay boneless and panting shallowly. Steve’s pelvis slapped quick and loud against the curve of Tony’s ass. When his orgasm finally hit, he growled and gasped, pumping his seed deep inside Tony, then spread his cheeks to watch as his thick cock pulled trickles of hot come from his hole on the withdrawal.

He pulled out, helped Tony stand as drips continued down his inner thighs, and hooked a hand under his jaw to tip his head back and catch his mouth in a hungry kiss.

“Come on, I’ll help you into bed to rest a minute, then I’m doing that again. And again. And again.”

For once, Tony had absolutely nothing to say.

*

“Sir, Captain Rogers’ whereabouts have been detected,” FRIDAY ominously informed them.

Draped across Steve’s naked body, between the black silk sheets in his bedroom, tingling, spent, sore, and completely delirious, Tony could only grunt, “Shit.”

Steve carefully shifted Tony, who rolled onto his back with a wince as Steve got up and began to pull on his boxers. “It’s fine, I’ll handle it.”

There were bruises, bites, saliva, come, lube, and god knew what else all over Tony, and he was pretty sure he’d be walking funny for a few days at least. “Yeah right. God, I don’t have the energy to stand let alone get dressed and deal with this. FRIDAY, no elevator access for anyone until I say so.”

“Yes, sir.”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up as he paused in his search for pants. “You really think that’ll stop Falcon and Hulk?”

“No, but it’ll slow them down.”

“Or piss them off even more. You know what happened with Clint and Bucky.”

“That’s different,” he countered. For one thing, before Eros got involved, Steve had practically been a nun and was way more trustworthy than either of those knuckleheads. For another, no one should have been surprised Tony was game for some crazy lust magic sex-capades with the guy he’d had posters of in his teenage bedroom. “And besides, Bruce doesn’t have a soft spot for me the way he does Clint.”

Steve had one thick leg shoved into his skinny-jeans and looked up at Tony with his mouth actually fallen open, “You can’t honestly believe that.” Tony did his best to keep his eyes averted because mostly-naked Steve in his bedroom, _still_ with a semi-hard-on, was a situation that kept raising all sorts of twisty reactions inside him. Not to mention the literally crippling ache in Tony’s rectum from being so thoroughly, gloriously fucked.

Really, he couldn’t even understand why Bruce would care. He’d been accidentally walking in on Tony mid-coitus with random strangers for years.

Then the door leading to the balcony blew open with a bang as it bounced back off the wall and everything promptly went to shit.

Because now there was a magically-sex-obsessed teenager in his bedroom too, wearing a red hoodie and grey sweatpants, the web-shooter on his wrist gleaming as he instinctively pointed it at Steve. His eyes widened, mouth in an O of shock as he stared at Tony, who covered his face with his hands and groaned.

“Hey!” Peter exclaimed with righteous fury, “You’re not allowed in here! Mr. Stark! You’re…” Tony saw Peter’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed thickly, taking in the surely-glorious view as Tony sat up and made sure everything important was covered by the sheet. “I’ll protect you,” Peter decided, still in the same breath, the words rushing out like water. “Captain Rogers, stay back.”

“Peter,” Steve frowned, using his disappointed dad voice, which Tony really shouldn’t have found as hot as he did, “Why are you up here? How did you—”

“I was just… I had to patrol and… Mr. Stark’s in danger, so I was making sure he… I wasn’t trying to…”

“Jesus Christ,” Tony sighed.

Changing tactics, Steve continued, “Young man, we need to have a serious discussion about your choices.”

“My choices?!” Peter scoffed, waving his arms in indignation, gesturing to Steve and the bed and Tony and god, Tony had forgotten about the Spidey senses and what in God’s name must the bedroom smell like right now? “You’re alone with him, i-in bed, and your clothes are…” he waved a hand at Steve’s jeans, still only half on, “And he looks like…” Peter clenched his jaw, face red, tendons in his neck straining with the force of his indignation, and tensed up from head to toe like he was actually going to punch Steve in the nose, or maybe kick him in the balls. Which, you know, would have been not nearly as tragic as it would have been amusing. Peter seemed to force himself to turn his head slightly, web-shooter still pointed threateningly at Steve, and asked Tony with gentle, earnest concern, “Mr. Stark, are you okay?”

Then those damned lights shimmered in Peter’s eyes, which swept up and down Tony’s soiled, marked, naked body, the silk sheet puddled in his lap, and what Tony would have given for the ability to teleport to another continent or dimension. Literally his entire fortune.

He had his legs bent, feet propped on the bed, arms resting on his knees, head in his hands, and no clue whatsoever.

“No. No, I’m really not,” Tony answered honestly.

And with that, there was an explosive crash out on the same balcony from which Peter had emerged, followed by a deafening but oh-so-familiar roar of rage.

Steve just gave Tony a level stare and deadpanned, “Great plan, Tony.”

“Oh, kiss my ass, Rogers. Hey hey! Sarcasm! That was not a sincere request!”

*

“You wanna sit down?” Natasha inquired, doing a great job at stifling the smirk.

Tony shoved his hands further down into the front pocket of his hooded sweatshirt where he was propped against the wall, one foot crossed over the other, dark sunglasses blocking their view of his eyes. The outside corners of his mouth pulled down and he said, “Nah, leaning’s… leaning’s good.”

Steve was doing a less stellar job at hiding his smarmy grin.

Bruce and Sam were not as amused.

Peter still looked like he wanted to tear Steve in half, and good luck with that, kid.

Bruce’s eyes shone green as he burst out, again, with, “I cannot fucking _believe_ you—”

Natasha cut him off with a raised hand. “What were you thinking,” she started, then instantly self-corrected. “Scratch that. I know what you were thinking. Even still, Tony, your judgment has always been questionable, but this is so far beyond—”

“I had noble intentions!” Tony blurted.

Sam snorted in derision.

“Look,” Tony admitted, “I didn’t want to have to do this. I really didn’t, and kid? I apologize in advance. I mean it. I swear I’ll make it up to you somehow. But—”

“Tony,” Steve said quietly, sounding worried. But after a moment, he shook his head and looked away, as if realizing the choice was out of their hands.

Tony pulled the phone out of his back pocket and started to call up files on the holo in the center of the conference room, above the table around which the rest of them sat.

“Oh god,” Peter moaned, sliding down in his chair, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt over not only the top of his head but his face as well. Then he slid even farther down, so they could barely see his head at all over the table. “Oh god, oh god.”

His hand shot out, the webshooter fired and the projection unit ripped right out of the table when he gave it a hard yank.

“Peter!” Several of them scolded at once.

He sat up to rest his elbows on the table and Tony caught a glimpse of red, teary eyes and real hopelessness that felt to Tony like his heart ripping right out of his chest and flopping around, bloody, on the table. He walked to the minibar and poured himself a generous drink, tossing the whole thing back.

“What the hell was that?” Sam asked.

“That was Peter hooking up with a known pedophile, since the motherfucker in question happens to look a little like me,” Tony managed to get out, before the sensation of being strangled by it all choked the words off. “And that? That is _entirely_ my fault.”

There was a second of total silence, and then he kicked the minibar hard enough to knock over and shatter a few bottles.

“Before we dive into that, because we sure as hell will,” Sam prefaced, “What does this have to do with Steve being naked in your penthouse bedroom?”

Tony made a silent prayer to not lose his mind or throw himself from the nearest window, both immensely tempting prospects, before answering. “I called Steve to meet with me because I need someone motivated to be there to physically stop Peter from reaching me, for his own sake, and help me prevent him from leaving the tower again and Peter, again, not your fault, okay? Those arrows? The effect it’s had on you, against your will? That means this is all happening _to_ you, not because you chose it, and I get that. _We_ get that. But you were in my bedroom _seconds_ after you sensed I was upset and in trouble, right? You have superpowers. I don’t. I literally can’t stop you if you get it in your head to do… something. Because I can’t always get into the suit in time. But Steve? Steve has the ability and plenty of incentive, with or without the spell, to stop you from doing something we would all regret. Whether that’s bursting into my bedroom, or meeting up with someone like that.” He pointed to where the holo had projected some of the more PG-rated stills from the security footage, along with the guy’s photo.

Peter wiped tears from his face and rested his head against the table, his arms folded over it.

“Okay, Tony, so… what? Fucking Steve was your payment for services rendered?” Sam got out before, milliseconds later, Steve had him by the throat and hanging in the air above his seat.

Natasha warned, cold and quiet, “Steve, put him down. Now.”

Strangled sounds came from Sam, who tried futilely to pry Steve’s hands loose. Then he was dropped roughly back into the chair. Steve pushed both hands through his own hair and took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said.

“No, you’re not,” Sam spat, his voice hoarse as he coughed and rubbed his throat.

“No, I’m not,” he realized, walking away from the table, shooting a protective glance at Tony. He faced Sam and told him, “I shouldn’t have done that. But you do _not_ get to talk to or about him that way.”

Natasha and Bruce exchanged a wordless glance in which much seemed to be communicated.

“What?” Steve challenged. “What?!”

“Your eyes aren’t even red right now. I don’t think this is coming from Eros’ spell,” Natasha replied.

“So what?”

Tony slid down the wall to a crouch, covering his face with his hands and trying to control his racing heartbeat, as well as the continued urge to run or slit his own throat with one of the glass bottle fragments.

“What Tony and I do behind closed doors is none of _any_ of your business. You do not get to judge him, or slut shame him, or whatever the hell this is.” Steve declared. “Tony is fine. I’m fine. Peter? Peter is _not_ fine, so let’s all deal with that. Please.”

Tony grabbed one of the non-broken bottles from the shelf and drank directly from it before standing and attempting to fill the awkward silence that had fallen on the room.

“Look, Peter,” he started, “If you need to get out and patrol in order to keep your head on straight, I get that. We can work with that. But you have to keep on the tracker. I will not negotiate on that, and I will be redesigning it so that you can’t pry it off or hack into it. That’s warning number one.”

He felt how intensely Peter was staring at him while still crying steadily, the same intensity there that had been in his gaze ever since he’d woken up in the med bay, and the bubbling scream of frustration it pulled up into Tony’s throat blocked any further words for a long moment.

“Warning number two is you cannot— _cannot_ —meet up with strangers like this again. Period. We will problem-solve this together. Me and you. I promise you. I know it’s awkward as fuck, but we won’t leave you to deal with this on your own anymore, okay? Whatever you need in order to get through this, whatever can be done, safely, we’ll help with. Whether it’s VR or a privately arranged, trusted service with a facial imaging mask or whatever. I know, I know, I’m sorry. Again. Did not plan to or want to do this in front of other people. None of us blame you. We want to protect you.”

Peter’s eyes were red, his hands tented in front of his face as he glared at Steve, then closed his eyes.

Yeah, sometimes life just flat-out wasn’t fair. Everyone in that room could personally attest to that fact.

“I swear to you,” Tony told him, as earnestly as possible, “I will fix this. I’ll find a way.”

“Can I,” Peter cleared his throat, his voice thick and unsteady, “Can I please go? Go to my room? I won’t try to leave, I just…”

The rest of them shared glances. Bruce spoke up. “Yeah. Yeah, go on.”

Peter stood and walked to the doorway, then stopped there, turning around to face Tony, even if his gaze was stuck to the floor. “I really am sorry, Mr. Stark. I didn’t mean to scare you or worry you, or—”

“Sir,” FRIDAY spoke up, interrupting, “Clint Barton and Sergeant Barnes are no longer in the building.”

“God _dammit_ ,” Bruce breathed, taking deeper breaths as Natasha eyed him warily, one hand moving soothingly against his back.

Bruce and Peter hurried from the room, for different reasons though equally motivated.

The others lingered.

Sam looked to still be wanting to defend Steve’s honor in his twisted way, and Natasha, well…

“I don’t trust him with you,” she said to Tony levelly, nodding over to Steve. “Not like this. When we don’t know how deep this spell goes. He could _easily_ cause permanent damage. He could kill you.”

Tony sighed, mostly out of weariness, but easily met her gaze. “Yeah, well. Tough shit, I guess. We all make our choices.”

With one last look at Steve, Tony turned and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up next: What the hell are Clint and Bucky up to now…
> 
> Chapter 4 will be posted on Saturday!


	4. Chapter 4

“Sorry it took me so long to get here. Went the long way. The long, long way,” Clint explained, pulling off his hat and glasses, unzipping his coat. “There’s no way even Tony and Bruce could follow that route by tracking the CCTV cameras. Nice place, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Bucky said, sitting on one of two chairs in the sparse apartment. Besides the metal chairs, there was a bare mattress and a single table, along with a small fridge and a sink. The only other door was either the bathroom, coat closet, or the entrance to Bucky’s batcave, he could only assume. The windows were papered over, a single bulb in the ceiling the only light.

“Yours?”

“Yep.”

“Who knows about it?”

“No one.”

“Steve?”

“No one. I just… sometimes need to get away. Someplace they can’t track me down.”

“Same. Just usually head for a nice big tree, though. No one ever looks there.”

The rest of the building as mostly empty. Even the street noise was barely audible.

Bucky still had his head down, folding and refolding a knit cap in his hands.

“If you, uh, want food, I could order something,” Bucky offered. “There’s some beer in the fridge. I—”

“Hey. Look at me.”

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” Bucky said almost to himself. “After what I did, I shouldn’t have—”

“Hey,” Clint said more sharply.

Bucky sagged even more, but glanced up through his fallen, dark hair and dark, thick lashes, his blue eyes catching the light. Clint shrugged off the coat, letting it slide to the wooden floor and crossed to him, catching Bucky’s wince when Clint got close. Taking Bucky’s right hand, Clint pulled him up. He hooked a hand around Bucky’s jaw, looking up into his crystal-clear eyes like cool waters.

“‘What you did?’ You didn’t do _enough_. I wanted… I _want_ … Touch me. Every second of every day, all I want is for you to touch me. And now you’re here,” Clint smiled hopefully. “You’re finally right here. And no one’s gonna barge in this time. I can have you. You can have me.”

Frowning and eyes squeezed shut, Bucky breathed harder, one hand slipping around Clint’s waist like it had a mind of its own to palm the curve of his lower back.

“I don’t want to take advantage. It’s not fair to you. You don’t actually want this like I do.”

“Like fucking hell I don’t,” Clint grumbled, taking Bucky’s hand and drawing it to Clint’s crotch, the fingers wrapping the hard line of his cock through the jeans.

Instantly, Bucky began to stroke the shaft and tease the end. With an almost breathless whimper, Clint reached behind his head and grabbed a handful of his shirt, drawing it over his head and off. He toed off his sneakers and by then, Bucky had Clint’s fly down. His hands slid the fabric gently down past Clint’s hips to mid-thigh to expose him. Then his hands caressed right back up Clint’s sides to his arms, guiding them up to fold behind his head, the first two fingers his hand trailing slowly back down as Clint’s breath caught and came in spasms.

Bucky traced a line down from the divot in Clint’s lower lip to the front of his neck, to the center of his chest, over scars of all shapes and sizes, to his navel, down through the hair around the root of his cock and up the curving line of his erection where Bucky’s thumbnail pressed, caught, and tugged at his slit. Trembling slightly, soft noises getting free of his filters, Clint frowned as Bucky traced back down to his balls, gathering them in a warm palm to caress as Clint’s head fell slightly back and Bucky leaned in to just scrape his teeth along the line of his jaw before pulling back to watch his reactions some more.

Clint glimpsed the red, a flicker of it, and relaxed a little.

Bucky let go, took a half step back as if to get a better view and began to slowly circle around.

“Spread your legs.”

Clint obeyed, powerless not to, feeling a little lightheaded already, when they’d barely begun.

The back of a knuckle traced down his spine, grazing feather-light, then fell away. A breath by his ear and a rasping whisper told him, “I could just watch you like this, hard and making those sweet begging sounds, for fucking days. Underneath all the cockiness, you’re shy, aren’t you? When you can’t hide behind the attitude or the jokes, it’s all just right there. Because you really want it that bad, huh? What would you do for it? The attention? The touch?”

“Anything,” Clint grunted. He’d been alone so long, without the comfort of knowing someone out there felt something for him. He’d compensated for the lack in all sorts of terrible ways. To have someone as powerful and gorgeous as Bucky see him, and want him more than anything, was a heady rush that had nothing at all to do with magic.

A rough hand took hold of him by the back of the neck, gripped there to anchor him, then massaged down to the junction of his shoulders.

“I like the trembling. You’re so nervous…”

He was released, and he kept his eyes shut, frowning, lips parted around his breaths as he listened to Bucky circling him again. Air shifted and he tracked Bucky easily just by the heat coming off him and the creaking of the floorboards. Clint kept anticipating another touch, wondering where it would land, feeling Bucky’s gaze like fingertips as his cock dripped and swelled impossibly thicker.

“Bucky, please,” Clint begged.

He came around behind him again.

“Bend over and grab your ankles.”

After a sharp, bitten-off moan, Clint did it.

“Good.”

A touch caressed up his back, then held him still.

A barely-wet finger twisted hard through his hole to the last knuckle and pumped shallowly. Shuddering, grunting, he was thankful for the steadying metal hand. The burn and the stretch was nothing compared to the excruciating vulnerability he felt. He couldn’t rationalize any of this, or how much he craved it.

The finger—Bucky’s middle one—came to a stop, completely buried, as the rest of the warm fingers cupped under Clint’s body, the metal hand moving lightly up his back to his neck. And Clint felt his hole twitching, clenching in flutters on the finger.

“Very good. Stand.”

He got upright, the finger shifting where it was nestled as he did. Clint folded his hands behind his head once more, since he had no other idea what to do with them, and found the pose strangely comforting. Bucky kissed up the side of his neck, palming Clint’s lower abdomen and pumping the finger inside him so slightly. Clint’s ear was nipped and he felt Bucky breathing him in.

Clint was so fucking hard. He tried rocking back against the finger, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

“You like it?”

“Yeah,” Clint whined.

The finger drew out.

He missed it instantly.

“On your knees.”

Bucky followed him down, pressed him forward with a hand to brace his arms on the ground, tugging Clint’s hips to tilt up and back, guiding him to arch his back and spreading his legs. He heard the snap of a plastic cap, felt Bucky smearing cool lube thickly over Clint’s cock, then twisted the middle finger back into him, now dripping. It pumped in much longer strokes in and out of him. In seconds, Clint was pushing back onto the finger, riding it. Bucky guided him faster. Clint could only moan and surrender.

“Good. Touch yourself, but don’t come.”

He didn’t need to be asked twice. As soon as he started to jerk off, his hand sliding easily in the slick, a second finger pressed in with the first, adding depth to Clint’s groans.

Biting his lip, quickening his pace, he felt everything else in his mind and awareness drifting away like it had before, but without any of the fear, leaving only calm and want. The fullness of the fingers in his ass had him making breathy gasps and low grunts of pure pleasure. His hand twisted up and down his rigid shaft, playing over the head just the way he liked best. Lost in it all, he almost sobbed in complaint when Bucky pulled out and said, “Stop. Let go.”

He guided Clint up to lean back against his chest, catching his mouth in a deep, probing kiss over his shoulder that ended all too soon.

An arm swept under Clint’s thighs to the backs of his knees, gathering him up as Bucky carried him the few steps to the mattress where he laid Clint down and stripped him bare before finally taking off his own clothes.

It suddenly felt very real, his mind strangely clear as Bucky crawled up between his thighs to kiss him again. Clint’s hands were in Bucky’s hair, his legs wrapping his waist. It was nothing at all to adjust the angle and let Bucky begin to sink into him.

The pain in Clint’s cry was real too, and he knew the hurt showed in his expression, but Bucky kissed him through it, hushing softly to him, his beautiful features reflecting his anguish on Clint’s behalf.

He went so slow, was so gentle, cupping a hand under Clint’s back to angle his hips just right, nailing right into his prostate until Clint was making primal, pleading sounds as he came over their stomachs. Hissing as Clint’s ass clenched with orgasm, Bucky rode him until he made his own rough cry, holding Clint tightly to him, panting against his shoulder.

He stayed buried and sought Clint’s mouth, the kiss tender and their lips hot from the flush of climax.

Clint caressed Bucky’s face, looked deep into his bright blue eyes.

“Stay with me for a while?” Bucky asked. “Please?”

Clint nodded. “Can we just lay here?”

Bucky let his cock slip out, kissing Clint until they both had to break to breathe. They laid on their sides, facing each other, and at some point, Clint drifted off to sleep.

When he woke, the light had changed. It was getting dark.

He watched Bucky watching him, and bit his lip as new fear swelled inside.

Frowning to see it, Bucky kissed the furrows in his brow, pressed a sweet kiss to his mouth.

Despite himself, Clint made a scared sound, low in his throat.

“It’s okay,” Bucky promised.

He pulled Clint closer, into his arms, wrapping a leg around him too, a hand cradling the back of his head.

“Your eyes,” Clint breathed.

“I know.”

If he knew, that meant…

With a moan of pure fear, Clint buried his face against Bucky’s skin, needed every stroke of his hand against his hair.

Eventually, he was able to pull back to look, but there was no sign of the red at all.

“How long?” Clint asked.

“It’s okay.”

“How long?”

Bucky sighed. “Before. Before we…”

“But I still wanted it. I still want it.” He heard the terror in his voice, which only scared him more.

Bucky held him, hushed, “I know.”

*

They must have laid there like that for over an hour, in silence, just breathing and soaking in their new awareness.

Was the spell gone, or had it just sunk in so deep as to become permanent? If it was gone, why did Clint still want Bucky? If it was permanent, what did that mean for them? For all of them?

He pushed the thoughts away. Didn’t want them. Couldn’t stand them.

He just wanted to keep feeling cared for and held. He wanted to not be in control for a little while again.

Clint rolled so his back was to Bucky’s chest, playing the little spoon. He closed his eyes, took a steading breath and pressed back with his hips, feeling Bucky’s swelling cock slide between his cheeks. He rolled his hips against it, listening to Bucky’s breath catch, feeling him thicken.

Reaching back, Clint pushed a hand through Bucky’s soft cascade of hair and asked, “Please?”

“Are you sure? I—”

“ _Please_?” It was quiet, but rough with the tangle of his emotions. “I’ll keep begging if I have to, to convince you. Please, Bucky, please…” His breath caught as his upper leg was lifted and Bucky pressed easily into him, stuffing him full.

Clint’s heavy moan of relief was followed by Bucky directing him, “Hold your leg.”

Clint grabbed under his own knee and Bucky’s hand moved to Clint’s straining cock, stroking it gently, using gathering pre-come to slick the way. Everything threatening to overwhelm him tumbled blissfully away. All that existed was the push and pull as he rocked between Bucky’s fist and his cock, and the light kisses peppering down the line of his neck and out across his shoulder.

His orgasm rushing up on him fast, and Clint’s thrusts grew frantic and trembling. Bucky’s lips brushed against the back of his head, with panting, hot breaths, his hand jacking him as come shot in an arc from his cock up over his chest to his neck. Bucky whimpered and took him faster, drawing low grunts from Clint at the growing soreness swelling inside him. Bucky came, quivering, holding Clint tight to him until he was spent and just catching his breath.

Clint reached back, cupping Bucky’s ass and keeping him from pulling out, grinding gently against him as they lay there.

“Why?” Bucky whispered.

“I don’t know.”

Before very long at all, he felt Bucky thickening inside him again and whimpered with need, rolling his hips even harder to urge him on. Bucky moaned in his ear.

“You’re swollen,” Bucky warned. “Sore…”

“Please,” Clint begged, voice breaking.

The question hung there in the air between them.

Why.

Maybe because he was just that afraid to face it. Maybe he needed it, to not be alone, to be wanted. Protected. Cared for. Maybe because if he made sure Bucky still wanted him now, it meant he’d stick around to help with the fallout.

Or maybe that wasn’t it at all, and there was no such thing as free will for him anymore. For either of them. Any of them.

Bucky drew both of Clint’s legs up to curl tight to his chest, propped himself up on his metal arm and leaned over Clint to kiss him as Bucky moved steadily inside of him. His come eased the way, and Clint was stretched enough at that point to not mind the friction and fullness.

Bucky whispered against his lips, “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Clint’s whole world narrowed down to the long, steady thrusts in and tugs back out of his oversensitive hole stretched around Bucky’s cock. The feel of it made him arch, reaching back to grab a handful of Bucky’s hair, his breath coming in gasps and whimpers. It lasted a long, long time, but finally, Bucky tensed up, let out a desperate cry and convulsed against Clint.

Both of them exhausted, Clint almost sobbed when Bucky pulled out, feeling gaping and empty.

Bucky rolled him, moved to lay between his legs, on top of him, looking down at him. His hand smoothed back Clint’s hair, both of them frowning. He angled his head and started a probing, slow kiss that gave Clint fresh goosebumps. When they finally broke apart, Clint pulled him close, nuzzling his neck, his arms wrapped around him tightly.

“I guess I’ll take you out to dinner and a movie sometime?” Bucky ventured.

Clint felt like crying, but laughed despite it all, pressing his lips against Bucky’s warm skin as he said, “Okay.”

His hands slid against Clint’s sides. His voice whispered, “I’m not going anywhere. Okay? Promise. We’ll figure it out. We’ll be okay.”

Clint didn’t want to say it, but he couldn’t hold it back.

“If this is what it seems… then Peter…”

“I know,” Bucky sighed.

*

Tony got the warning from FRIDAY while he was out helping them look for Clint and Bucky, since flying was less agonizing than walking.

Stephen had felt Eros coming, had walked out of the building to meet him, then vanished.

That’s when the spell shifted gears for all of them, the light leaving their eyes for good.

By the time they’d gotten back to the Tower, Stephen was there, lying in the lobby, wrapped in a blanket, alive and unharmed in any permanent way but barely conscious, having been obviously, thoroughly used by Eros until he’d passed out.

Crouched by his bedside in med bay, Tony locked eyes with Strange, holding his hand, because fuck it, they’d been through enough and comfort was necessary.

“Eros said we’re his now. That though the initial spark was ours alone, once he’d fanned the flame it would never be extinguished. His form of lust, like war, is undying. He feels it’s balanced, if we belong to both him and Ares in equal measure.” Strange’s words echoed heavily through the room. Tony felt Bruce and Natasha just behind him, taking it all in, just as lost for words. “He’s looking for the bow in other places now. With his questioning of me and… he was thorough. He knows we don’t have it, and that we’ll be loyal to him whether consciously or not. He won’t attack again.”

“What about you, huh?” Tony scowled.

“What about me?” Stephen smiled weakly.

With disgust and fury, Tony choked out, “What he did to you was—”

“I wanted it.”

“Like fucking hell did you—”

“Tony,” Stephen said gently. “We’ve been through this. With all of us. Emotion’s origin is inconsequential once felt. It just is. I’m okay. I promise. I appreciate the concern. The paradoxical nature of the event doesn’t change what we know to be true. If he came back here right now, I’d go willingly. Eagerly. It’s done.”

“It’s not done!” Tony raged, vision blurring as his chest burned. “Even if you’ve made your peace with this, Peter is still— I can’t live with this! I can’t!”

Stephen squeezed Tony’s hand.

“We’ve all survived lusting after someone we can never have,” Stephen confided. “I know it seems unfair, but Peter will be okay too. Maybe someday you’ll believe me.” 

*

Steve had given him the space he’d need to process it. Three days later, after finally getting some sleep and feeling more human, Tony called him up to the penthouse again.

Tony didn’t know what to say, or how to face him. None of this was fair to Steve either, no matter how he might have felt before.

So, Tony just stood there, with his hands laced behind his head, stance wide, staring blankly at the elevator doors as they opened and Captain America strode through them.

He stopped well short of Tony, giving him an intense stare.

“I know you,” Steve warned. “I know you’ve taken this all on yourself. Mostly because you hate yourself for wanting this. Because you don’t know how to allow yourself to make peace. Because you don’t believe I’d ever actually want you, or care about you, but I have _always_ cared about you, Tony. Because despite it all, you have always been good, and true, and I will always love you for that, no matter what you think my motives are. I’ll love you for it, even if you can’t love me back.”

Tony blinked the tears free, knees wobbly, feeling all the air get sucked from the room.

But it was okay, because then Steve had him up in his arms, then up against the wall again.

Tony kissed him until he felt Steve’s willpower shatter. A moment later, after a frantic search in a nearby drawer for lube, the back of Tony’s jeans had been yanked down and wet fingers were inside him. His legs hooked around Steve’s waist, bearing the burn of the frantic stretch. Steve kept kissing him through it until he pulled his fingers free and started to work his way inside, letting gravity pull Tony down onto him. He bit and sucked marks on Tony’s neck as he threw his head back and rode Steve, rocking into each pointed, hard thrust.

It was quick and rough and Steve came first.

He put Tony down, pinned him back to the wall and dropped to his knees to suck him until he came. Then they both collapsed to the floor, but Steve pulled him into his arms and that was okay.

Steve said something about getting food and watching TV.

Tony mentioned how maybe Steve could bring some of his stuff up to the penthouse, since there was so much space and all.

And that was okay too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up in the final installment: Tony and Peter, alone in a room...
> 
> Chapter 5 will be posted on Monday!


	5. Chapter 5

**Six Months Later**

“Hey, sorry I’m late. Did you eat yet? We could go out if you’re stir crazy. Or even do a double date thing with Buck and Clint. Kind of craving a steak, but—” Steve stopped short, a few paces from the elevator and fresh from the showers, his gym bag slung over a shoulder. “What’s wrong? Tony?”

Tony shook his head, fingers tented over his mouth, elbows on his knees. A blue holo floated over the coffee table in front of where he was sitting on the couch. It held his attention even more than the gut-punched feeling making him want to vomit.

Air. He needed air.

Head buzzing with senseless noise and screaming, Tony got up off the couch and went out through the doors to the balcony without a word. He walked right up the edge, groaning sickly, grabbed onto the railing and doubled over.

A wail of pure despair from the utter depths of him was out before he could pull it back.

The pain crawled up from his stomach to his chest, squeezing so hard he gasped as the tears slipped down his face.

He’d done everything, _anything_ , and there was nothing left to try. He— No. That was a lie. There was something. There had always been something left, right from the start, which he’d so completely closed himself off from, he hadn’t even realized…

Strong hands pulled him up off the ground where he’d fallen to his knees, folding him into an embrace filled with more affection and kindness than he deserved.

It spoke to how well Steve knew Tony that he didn’t apologize or say everything would be fine. He didn’t say a word. He just held him while Tony’s heart broke into a billion pieces.

Pieces of the email repeated in a loop in his head, mocking.

_I’m leaving the team._

_My plane leaves for Tokyo tomorrow._

_I’m not coming back. Don’t follow me or interfere._

_Give me that much. I’m literally begging you._

_You have to stop trying to fix this._

_I can’t live like this anymore._

_Please, don’t ever contact me again._

Keeping his distance hadn’t worked. Being there hadn’t worked. Tech was useless. So, funnily enough, was magic. Trying to buy his way into a solution had been the worst move of all.

When Tony’s shivering grew too pronounced, Steve guided him back inside, shutting off the holo and sitting with Tony on the couch.

“Tony, it’s time. We need to talk about it.”

The profound nope of Tony’s entire response shot him up off the couch in search of booze. Lots and lots of booze. He didn’t get far, thanks to Steve’s unyielding grip on his lower arm.

Trapped and with no other choice, he played dumb.

“Talk about what? Dinner? Steaks sound great. Let’s go out. Somewhere noisy. How about—”

One good yank and Tony had been pulled to straddle Steve’s lap, facing him. It was quite possibly the only time he’d been in that particular position when he hadn’t instantly adored it.

“This is inappropriate.”

“Is it?” That superhuman grip of his locked down on Tony’s right thigh and left shoulder. “Given the subject matter? He’s eighteen now. In my day, he’d be sent off to war as cannon fodder. But _this_ is inappropriate?”

Tony tried to get up and leave. He really did.

“No, we’re talking about this,” Steve countered calmly.

“It’s not happening.”

“If you were alone in this? No, probably not. You’d decide what the honorable thing to do is, and let him quit and leave and live in misery in Japan for the rest of his life. You’d never see his face in person again. You’d never speak a word to each other. And you’d both be irreparably hurt by it.” He watched Tony struggling, face impassive. “But you’re not alone. Haven’t been for a while. And I’ve let you have the final word on this so far, but now we’re going to talk about it, whether you like it or not. Because I care about you, Tony. I love you.”

“Stop,” Tony gasped, breaking again. God, he hated the tears. He squeezed his eyes shut against it all, frowning, jaw clenched. Hated when Steve’s hand moved from his shoulder to his jaw to force his chin back up.

Reaching down inside himself for the argument he needed to make, the denials and rationalizations, he found nothing of substance, and hated that too.

“The age gap—”

“I’m more than a half century older than you, but good try.”

“Yeah, on a fucking technicality,” he growled.

“Oh, my time on ice isn’t good enough for you? That it? I don’t look it, so it doesn’t count? Try again. Go on.”

“I don’t want it. I don’t want that from him.”

Steve laughed. He fucking _laughed_.

“You know,” Steve said slowly, “they say the fastest way to make Tony Stark want something is to tell him he can’t have it, or it can’t be done.”

His hand shifted again from Tony’s jaw to his crotch.

Steve’s voice softened to a sultry purr. “How many times have you had him next to naked in your workshop for suit measurements? How often do you think about him constantly jerking off thinking about you? Do you imagine his fantasies? How they must have progressed and intensified? How there’s no way that by now he doesn’t want it hard and dirty? You’ve personally screened and chosen sex workers to fuck him senseless. I can feel how hard you are right now.”

“Totally not fair. You know I like when you hold me down,” Tony complained. Mentally, he scrambled, which was a monumental undertaking given the logistics of his predicament. “Shouldn’t you want me not fucking other people?”

“He needs you. Maybe I’d like to see you taking care of him.”

“Metaphorically or biblically?”

“Existentially.”

“God, _why_ are you so hot?”

“Because I _own you_ , Anthony Edward Stark.” He dragged Tony in by a fist twisted in the front of his shirt. The slow and sensual kiss gave Tony goosebumps from head to toe.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Yeah, you do.”

Steve licked the taste of Tony from his lips and grinned. “Great. Now, go get ‘im, tiger.”

*

The apartment was small but safe and close to the campus of Peter’s college. Tony had a key because he’d bought the building and upgraded all the security before gifting Peter the place to use. There had been oh-so-much kicking and screaming but in the end the kid caved and took it to get further away from the tower and Tony.

The footsteps approaching the door stopped short of entering. After a full minute, the key turned in the lock and the door inched open slightly.

“You can’t be in here. You need to go. I don’t want to see you or talk to you.”

The deadness in Peter’s voice hurt more than anything written in his email. It was like he’d aged thirty years since that day with Eros. Like all of his innocence and sweetness was gone, snuffed out. His emotional turmoil and growing hopelessness had not only destroyed his relationship with Tony, but also his ability to feel part of the team. It had cost him his place with the Avengers, his home, his future, and any sense that he might find happiness someday.

Tony shouldn’t have waited so long. Even if he was taking advantage on some level, Tony was more than willing to sacrifice his eternal soul in exchange for Peter’s goodness and joy.

There was no sense in talking about it rationally. Nothing about this was rational.

Tony crossed swiftly to the door, pulling it roughly open the rest of the way, grabbing Peter by the front of the shirt like Steve had done half an hour ago with him, and dragging him in for a rough kiss.

There wasn’t any sort of resistance at all. They each melted right into the connection. Frowning, Tony poured all of his multifaceted love for Peter into each drag and press of his lips, each scrape of his teeth. Since Peter had been tormented by desire for so long, it only felt right to let Tony’s argument for them to stay together be led by his own desire, which had been hidden so carefully away until now. He framed Peter’s perfect face with his hands, caressing his cheekbones with his thumbs, chasing Peter’s gasp of shock to open him wider and lick into him. Peter made the softest, sobbing whimper, full of so very much pain, and pushed Tony off of him.

“Eros…” Peter fumbled, unable to focus or open his eyes or stand completely upright, having fallen back into the doorframe, “he’s back? He got you? Or—”

“No, this is all naturally homegrown,” Tony assured him, falling on him again, trapping him against the doorframe and slipping a hand underneath Peter’s shirt. The first touch of his velvety soft skin was electric and did more than anything else to reassure Tony this was the right choice. Logic had stood in their way for months. He couldn’t let it get a foothold. He had to keep forcing them both way over the line in order to convince Peter he wasn’t placating or insincere about any part of this. He mouthed at Peter’s jaw, then down his throat as he started working open Peter’s belt and the fly of his jeans.

The sounds Peter was making were absolutely desperate, completely unfiltered, and exponentially better than any of Tony’s private fantasies about this moment.

It spoke volumes about Peter’s courage and strength that he kept trying to put on the brakes, however feeble his attempts.

“But… why? How? You don’t… You don’t want this. You’ve never…”

Tony kissed him quiet, getting a wrenching moan for his trouble. He whispered against Peter’s lips, “Trust me, I do. Protecting you has always been the biggest priority. Always will be. Can’t protect you if I can’t have you. Hence the evasive maneuver,” and sank to his knees. “So. Can I have you?”

The answer was a whimper, a scrunched face, and a frantic nod.

With how hard up he knew Peter to be, and the Spidey senses and his age and all of it, Tony knew he had to make it count. As soon as he saw the nod, he had Peter cradled on his tongue, lips hugged close, mouth wide to take him deep, relaxing his throat as the head pushed to fill it, sucked, and swallowed.

Peter’s voice was higher pitched than Tony had ever heard it as it shattered on his cry. His legs gave out as he instantly climaxed, so Tony held him up as Peter unloaded down his throat. Shuddering, one fist grasping the collar of Tony’s leather jacket, the other wrapped in Tony’s hair, Peter began to hyperventilate. Undeterred, Tony sucked him through it, mouth moving up and down his length to wring out each drop, then licked the tip clean, sucking kisses to it, and taking a decadent moment to let the end of his tongue push into his slit for more of the sweet, bitter taste of him.

Peter panted, “God… I’ve… had this dream… So many… many times…”

Tony had barely gotten to his feet when Peter reeled him in with a powerful grip on the jacket, greedily tonguing Tony’s mouth as if to taste himself there. The desperation of it was so much hotter than it had any right to be.

“Don’t wake me up, okay?” Peter quietly begged him, still breathing too shallowly, tension all over his face like at any moment he might start crying.

Tony wrapped him in his arms, breathing deep of the scent of him at his neck, in his hair. Peter’s arms circled him as well, his grip as strong as Steve’s, the size of him just much smaller.

“I’m so sorry,” Tony breathed. “I was just… scared. I told myself doing this would hurt you more than it would help. And then not doing it hurt you anyway. So, someone I trust more than I trust myself showed me how wrong I was, before I could lose you forever.”

He couldn’t get over the perfect size of him, how well he fit in Tony’s arms, against his chest, his chin hooked over his shoulder. Everything about him was delicious, decadent, forbidden, and just so fucking right.

“S-steve?” Peter murmured in disbelief.

“Yeah.”

“He knows? That you’re here? That…”

“Yeah, I have permission. Don’t worry about that. Right now, this is just about you and me, okay? What do you need? Just name it. Nothing’s off the table.”

“Everything,” Peter sighed. He still sounded like he was about to pass out, his breathing erratic and shallow.

Tony pulled back to look into his eyes.

“You’re freaking out,” he observed.

“Yeah,” Peter laughed weakly. “You’re really… ? You want to…?”

“Oh, I want to. No more waiting. No more excuses. Why, that wasn’t convincing enough just now?” he slipped his thigh between Peter’s and thrust against his hip while Peter bucked, his cock already hard again as it dragged against Tony’s leg. “Does that help convince you?” He took a steadying breath and planted a hand on the doorframe above Peter’s head, swallowing back moans at the sight and feel of Peter grinding on him with helpless little mewls slipping over his kiss-bitten lips. “You are _so fucking young_ , and I’m not proud of it, but this is past wanting to. I need to. Please say yes.”

“Yes! Yes, yes, yes.”

“Hey, you with me? Gonna faint?”

“Maybe, yeah. It’s a… it’s a lot.”

Tony brought him into the apartment and sat him in a chair, then went to pour some water into a glass from the tap, bringing it to Peter and setting it in his hands.

With the primary goal of keeping Peter in the chair, rather than sliding to the floor if he really did pass out, Tony moved to stand behind him, holding Peter back against him, smoothing the hair back from his forehead as Peter’s arm came up to wrap the one Tony had slung across his chest.

“You’re really here?”

“Yeah. Really am.”

“For how long? Like a one-time thing? I mean, that’s fine. Just being able to touch you…” his voice broke and he shook in Tony’s arms with the force of the tears he was holding back.

Kissing the top of his head, Tony hushed, “Hey, no. I wouldn’t do that to you. I need you to trust me here, okay? You’re not gonna be alone in this anymore. Period. Ever. Cross my heart. But, one thing at a time.”

When he was sure Peter was stable enough, Tony let go and went around to kneel between his feet to hug him again—which he’d just decided was his new favorite thing to do—guiding Peter’s head to lay on his shoulder. And then Peter just cried.

He kept trying to apologize and stop himself from letting out all of that bottled-up pain, so Tony just kept holding him, knowing the kid had kept it all inside on his own for way too long. And if Tony got a little upset too, well, then that was alright.

Once they’d mostly gotten it out of their systems, Peter sat back and finished the water, gaze lowered, though it flicked up to Tony’s face as if to make sure he was really there.

“We’ve got a lot to talk about—big picture and long term stuff, and we will—but first, how about some basics?”

Peter shook his head in agreement, biting at his swollen, dark lips.

“Your choice: sex first, or logistics talk?”

“Um. First one.”

“Great. Okay, so, preferences? Anything off limits?”

Peter shook his head, eyes widening fractionally.

“Top or bottom?”

“Right now? Bottom.”

“Awesome. Okay, serious question: you ready for this?”

He shook his head deliberately from side to side and said, “Fuck yeah I am.”

“Two rules,” Tony prefaced, holding up a finger. “One: Don’t you dare call me ‘Mr. Stark.’ Two: If you start to change your mind at any time, we stop. Shouldn’t be hard. You’re stronger than me, emotionally and otherwise. Deal?”

“Deal,” Peter said, biting his lip as he smiled.

Tony just drank in the taboo, living temptation of him before sighing, “God, I am _so_ going to hell for what I’m about to do to you, but I am _so_ good with that.” He stood, formulating a plan. “Okay. First step, you go shower. Be thorough. Breathe. I’ll be waiting.”

“Don’t go.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Peter took a deeper breath and got to his feet, shyly tugging the hem of his shirt down to cover his open fly. He stepped into Tony’s space and averted his gaze, shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot for a long moment before confessing softly, “I’d do anything for you, you know. Anything.”

Then he lifted his chin and stretched up to press a chaste kiss to Tony’s lips.

It gave Tony the best kind of chills.

“Likewise, beautiful. Since the day we met. This is me trying to make it all up to you, somehow. Whatever it takes. However long you want me,” Tony swore. “I’m never gonna deserve you though, you know that, right?”

Peter smiled, so much life beginning to come back into his eyes after far too long without it, and said, “Agree to disagree, I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Peter took his hand, brought it to his lips and kissed the knuckles, then stepped back, their arms stretched out between them until he let go.

*

Peter came out of the bathroom in only a small towel around his hips, flushed and damp, to find Tony next to his bed, barefoot and shirtless. It clearly short-circuited something in the poor kid’s brain, causing him to become pretty unresponsive, just staring, gaping, and making soft noises. So, Tony took control again.

In no time, they were on the bed. Tony had Peter under him, naked, and started trailing soft kisses and light licks of his tongue all over the surface of Peter’s body. He started at the side of his neck and worked his way down, taking his time and being as thorough as he was in any important project he took on. In fact, he started to get lost in it—the heat and immaculate softness of Peter’s skin; the rich, clean scent of him; the firmness of his lithe, lean body; and the intoxication of being with someone both shorter and smaller than him. The hushed little keening sounds Peter made were the perfect soundtrack to basically anything. Tony already had detailed plans to properly record those and get them loaded as an audio file. He could picture it already—background music in his private workshop had never been so arousing.

Getting ahead of himself, he worked to anchor himself in where he was and why by starting to ask more questions.

“You jerked off in the shower, didn’t you?”

“I had to,” Peter lamented on a sigh, his nose scrunched up adorably as Tony intentionally rubbed the coarse hair of his goatee against the hollow of Peter’s hip.

“Naughty boy.”

“God, yes, please punish me.”

“Jesus,” Tony breathed, propping himself up on an arm to stare in amazement for a second at the sincerity of that request.

“No, don’t stop. You can’t stop. You can’t ever…” it broke off in a moan as Tony shifted lower and scraped his teeth against the inside of Peter’s thigh. “Please harder.”

Tony’s eyebrows raised but he went with it, biting down without breaking the skin and sucking a mark. It made Peter’s cock twitch and drip. When Tony pulled away to admire his work, he knew the bruise wouldn’t last and took a second to lament the kid’s healing factor before catching himself.

“What have you fantasized about with me?” he asked, refocusing yet again and leaving many more bites and kisses down both of Peter’s inner thighs. “Specifically.”

“Everything,” he sighed happily, deliriously, writhing on the bed, “but mostly… about you being rough with me. You’re always so careful. Protective. Don’t get me wrong, I really a-appreciate it. I know you just w-want the best for me, and want to watch out for me, but sometimes I just think about what it’d be like if you weren’t and if you’d relax and treat me with… I don’t know. Passion. Instead.”

“That your preference or the spell’s?”

“I don’t know,” Peter whined. “Does it matter anymore? If I want it now? If I’ve wanted it for over half a year?”

“Tell me something in detail that you’ve wanted.”

“But… It’s embarrassing.”

Tony shifted to lick deliberately up Peter’s balls to his shaft, through thick drips of pre-come, moaning back in his throat at the taste, but also at how he even _was_ getting to taste him at all, something Tony had never dared to even imagine. “Pete, we’re way past embarrassing,” Tony promised. “This is all about you. Not me. The whole point is to take some pressure off, right? How can I know how best to do that if you don’t give me something solid to work with?”

“I’m not a project.”

“Let’s debate that when I’m not about to fuck you senseless, ‘kay?”

He manhandled Peter over onto his stomach, and resumed the crucial task of kissing exactly every inch of the golden, gorgeous flesh spread under him.

“Your… your beard, I guess,” Peter started. Maybe it was easier to not have to look at Tony while he said it. “Scraping against me. You ripping my clothes off, pinning me down, f-forcing your… your cock into me without prep and how it would ache but I wouldn’t care and you won’t stop even though you could tell I could… could barely take it all, and you’d go so hard I couldn’t even breathe and you’d come in me and leave marks that would stay a long time and yeah. I guess that’s one.”

“Yeah, that was quite a sentence,” Tony admitted, feeling way too flushed and hard, because _fuck_.

He had Peter’s tight, pert ass right under his lips, so he raked his beard over the curve, over and over until the skin pinked a bit, then started to use his teeth instead, getting the bonus of Peter’s reaction as he started grinding on the bed. And that lovely, breathy, keening soundtrack played on. Tony held him still, pinning his hips to the bed and asked, “What did you fantasize about before the spell?”

“Same.”

“Yeah, I call bullshit.”

“No, I swear! I mean, come on, you’re Tony Stark! You’re the sexiest person alive. Everything you’ve built, everything you are to the world, how you haven’t lost yourself in it all, or gotten swallowed up by it… It’s, it’s just everything. And not just that… the way you dress, the way you move, the way everyone wants you, and the way you just _look_ at people…”

“Okay, enough about me. Tell me another one. Something different.”

He reached for a pillow and wedged it under Peter’s hips.

Peter stewed in his thoughts for a moment, so Tony asked, “Hey, sidenote, when’s the last time you had sex? I know you were tested two weeks ago as part of the regular deal with the rest of us.”

“Four months ago.”

“Okay, I really want to call bullshit again.”

“No, I know you tried to set me up with people and I thought about it, but I couldn’t go through with it. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t what I actually wanted and being with other people just reminded me of how unhappy I was, which was worse than just trying to keep my mind off it entirely.”

Tony crawled up Peter’s body to thrust lightly against his lifted ass, caressing up the tensed muscles of his back and catching the edge his ear between his teeth. Peter’s expression twisted with anguish and he started to hyperventilate again, just softly moaning over and over, “Oh my god.”

“Tell me something,” Tony whispered in his ear.

“Okay. Okay. I um… _Oh god_ … I… I’m sorry but I saw you from the balcony one night, sleeping naked on top of those silk sheets and… I thought about going in and getting in bed with you. I’d get on top of you and finger you open, really gentle and… and bury myself inside you and just go really slow and make you moan my name and yeah I like that one a lot. But I’m sorry for watching you. I know that’s an— an invasion of privacy and all.”

Tony had to catch his breath, shivering a little. “Yeah, I don’t hate that one,” he confessed. “That’s gonna happen for sure. As soon as possible. Maybe later tonight.”

Peter groaned heavily, “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it. You’re gonna kill me if—”

“Oh no. No, I mean it. But first, some urgent business…”

He slid down again, settling between Peter’s thighs, used both hands to spread him wide and licked hard over his hole.

The kid flew right off the bed, landed on his hands and knees and clearly was struggling to breathe in very real ways.

“You… you just…”

“Yeah, and I wasn’t finished. I’m guessing first time?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Awesome. I love being first.” He yanked Peter back down, spread him, caressed over Peter’s pink rim with two fingertips, and you’d have thought Tony had run him through with a sword or something with the way he yelled, because Jesus the kid was wound tight.

“Can I… It might be easier if… I want to be able to see you, while…”

“Oh. Sure. You’re flexible, right? Right.”

He rolled Peter over again, folding his legs back so his knees were by his ears, ass way up in the air and spread beautifully. Peter grabbed onto his own legs and Tony got to work. After lightly circling around his target with his tongue a few times, he pressed hard to slip inside, pumping the wet muscle within the tightly clenched ring to get as deep as possible. He stroked along the inside of Peter with firm pressure, sucked kisses there and even scraped his teeth. The beard burn was happening too, effortlessly.

Closing his eyes and just savoring it, along with a beautiful chorus of the most obscene noises he’d ever thought possible, Tony was caught with surprise as Peter came for his third time, untouched. His cry broke apart in fragments as he quivered and clenched in little flutters, shooting come all over his upper chest and neck and wow, Tony didn’t hate the sight of that either. He kept tongue-fucking Peter and used a hand to stroke Peter’s cock through the aftershocks, then dipped a finger inside to pull him open wider, thickening his tongue to add to the stretch.

Since he was taking it well enough, Tony added a second finger right away, spreading them both to lick between. That got him a hand twisted in his hair, pulling lightly as Peter’s cries lengthened, lowered, and deepened. Little quivers in Peter’s rim, his thighs, and stomach kept happening at random, and Tony could have done that for _hours_ , but then Peter rasped, “ _Please just fuck me_. Please, I need... I need you… I need you to, Tony. Please?”

And yeah, Tony had no power to resist that. He was only human.

He shed the jeans and boxer briefs, feeling Peter’s eyes locked on him as the clothes peeled away, his pretty begging continuous throughout.

Tony got the lube, climbed back on, and used more than plenty before lining up.

“Yeah, come on,” Peter pleaded. His legs were hooked over Tony’s shoulders at that point. Keeping the fantasy in mind and telling himself the kid could take it, Tony ploughed past his own reservations and thrust hard. Peter’s yell sharpened, his body flexing with the strain as the head was forced through. Tony kept pushing roughly, making him take the full length, watching his mouth work soundlessly as his breath choked off, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.

He was so much tighter than Tony expected, and Tony’s moan rang out loud through the space, his hips bucking helplessly into the snug, brutal heat of him. Then Peter’s hands were gripping his ass, pulling him in, and he was begging, “Harder. Please, harder,” over and over. So, Tony pressed Peter’s legs back by his ears and gave it to him as hard as he could, slamming in as he pounded him raw. Peter gasped, then eased into it, humming and purring, then convulsed as he came dry, with nothing left in the tank to spill.

Growling, Tony tried somehow to draw it out, but it honestly would have taken superpowers he absolutely didn’t have. He came hard, vision whiting out, the room spinning.

Devoted to the task at hand, he allowed himself precious seconds to recover and try to remember his own name.

Then he replaced his softened cock with four fingers that reached right for Peter’s prostate to massage it as Tony sank down to once again swallow Peter’s pretty, somehow-still-rigid cock. There was no reason to stop, so Tony kept going until Peter stopped being able to form words and collapsed completely beneath him.

Flopping down on the bed beside Peter’s sprawled, senselessly moaning form, Tony let him curl up against him, Peter’s arms and legs winding around possessively.

“Did I win? That felt like a win,” Tony said.

“No way,” Peter murmured, dozing off. “I _definitely_ win.”

*

The take-out containers were strewn over the countertop and the place still smelled of grilled steak and fried onions, plus their empty beer bottles were everywhere. FRIDAY played some rich, mellow jazz and Clint was just perfectly content to lay on his back across the bare spots on the granite counter with his head hanging over the edge, throwing a tennis ball to play catch with himself. He kept changing his trajectory to mix it up, aiming for the ball to bounce off of several walls, the ceiling and floor as well as furniture before it finally ricocheted back into his hands.

“Where exactly is Tony ‘out’?” Bucky asked Steve. Bucky was seated on one of the stools near Clint while a restless Steve started to clean up, since it had been late several hours ago, and was officially shifting into ‘early’. “You can’t evade the question forever. You said it’s not a mission. It’s not a patrol. Is he hiding out from something?”

Steve shrugged.

“Come on,” Bucky complained, dragging out the second word.

“I’m fine to clean up if you two need to hit it,” Steve assured him.

“No way. Not when you’ve got that look on your face. Has he checked in?”

“He can’t. Yet. It’s complicated. Something he had to do on his own.”

Bucky squinted at him, nursing his beer.

“Would you just sit and relax?” Bucky told him.

“Can’t.”

Clint snorted. He threw the ball against the ceiling to hit the post, the elevator doors, then the end table, then the ceiling again, and the floor before it fell right back into his palm. “That’s for damn sure.”

“Is Hulk still holding a grudge against you?” Steve asked Bucky as he shoveled paper cartons into the trash.

“Well, he stopped randomly breaking into the apartment to yank Clint out of my arms while we sleep, if that’s what you mean. But he’s still not a fan. Obviously, Bruce feels awful about it, but I told him I get it. It’s nice someone else cares so much about him to worry like that.”

“Aww, you big softy,” Clint beamed.

Bucky smirked and bent to plant an upside-down kiss on him that went dirty fast enough that Steve pointedly cleared his throat and then, when that didn’t work, sprayed them both with the nozzle on the sink to cool them off.

Bucky wiped a hand over his dripping face, warning, “Oh, you’ll pay for that one, Rogers.”

He eased off the stool, gaze locked to his target as Steve tensed to either run or brace himself for incoming when the elevator door _binged_ and opened.

“Hey, honey, we’re home,” Tony said as he stepped out just behind Peter, into instant frozen silence, which Clint was happy enough to shatter.

“Sweet. You owe me twenty,” he told Bucky.

“What? No way… Oh. Goddamn it.” He reached into his pants pocket for his wallet.

Tony looked like he’d been hit by a cartoon bus. The kind that made birds and stars dance in circles around your head. Clint was sure one firm tap to the chest would have sent him reeling.

Peter, on the other hand, looked like all his Christmas mornings had come at once. Smiling like he couldn’t help it, rosy-cheeked, and with a bouncy step.

Laughing, Clint grabbed the edge of the counter for leverage and did a flip over and onto his feet. He tossed the ball up in gentle, repeated arcs, catching it without looking and asked, “Kid, what’d you even _do_ to him?! No, you know what? Don’t ever, ever answer that.”

“Ever,” Bucky agreed. He rested a hand on Clint’s back and decided, “That’s our cue. C’mon, babe, let’s head home.”

Clint looked into Bucky’s eyes, bit the edge of his lip and teased, “Yes, Master. Your wish is my command.”

“I will still spray you,” Steve warned. “This thing has excellent range.”

Bucky turned to lock eyes with him, gave a mildly threatening gesture of warning that vengeance would indeed be a bitch, and then they headed out.

Bucky clapped Peter on the shoulder as they passed, muttering, “Congrats. Pace yourself, kiddo.”

“Thanks! Thanks, uh, Sergeant Barnes. I will.”

“Liar,” Clint grinned, pecking a kiss to Peter’s cheek.

Bucky yanked him away by the arm as Clint complained, “But I wanna see this!”

*

Steve dried his hands and walked around to meet them, not quite able to hide the grin that bubbled to the surface.

“How’d it go?”

“Oh,” Tony said heavily, “It went.” He let a hand rest in the small of Peter’s back, sensing his tension in facing Steve. “Pete’s gonna, um, stay here, for now. In the penthouse. Start to get re-acclimated to the team, ease back into school when he’s ready. I told him we had plenty of time to figure things out with, uh, the three of us. Lots to talk about and all that.”

Steve came in and kissed Tony, the gentle peck deepening until he was sure Steve was just sucking the taste of Peter from his tongue. When Steve finally let him come up for air, Tony could only manage, “Yeah, that’s um, I was… what was I…?”

“You’re smiling again,” Steve observed happily as he shifted to Peter, dragging him in for a bear hug that made Peter squeak and blush. Remembering, perhaps that the boy needed air to breathe, he let go but held him there by the shoulders to say, “I know how hard it is when you feel you don’t have a place where you fit, and I’m sorry for what you’ve been through the past months. I should have realized sooner, and I apologize for my part in keeping Tony from you.”

Tony told Peter, nodding to Steve. “Yeah, he might own my ass, because yeah. Yeah, he does, but sharing is caring. Right, Cap?”

“Seems so.”

A flicker of concern moved over Steve’s expression. “What’s up? Something on your mind, Peter?”

“Well, um,” he said shyly, face scrunching adorably in a way that prompted some brand new kinds of reactions from Tony, “I may have, uh, failed to mention that not _all_ of my fantasies about Tony were _only_ of, um, Tony?”

Tony’s eyebrows shot up and he thumbed over his shoulder at Steve.

With a growing, wicked grin, as a hoard of decadent, absolutely filthy ideas flooded his mind, Tony said, “Well, well. Isn’t _this_ gonna be fun…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've obviously left this open to future installments, so let me know if that's something you'd be interested in. This part of the story was about how the guys all got together and why. The next part would be more about the dynamics of their relationships and how everything plays out with the everlasting magical super-lust, (and if/when Eros comes back). If there's anything in particular you'd like to see explored, let me know :D
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> EDIT 8/9/19: The first chapter of the sequel is already done so it's safe to say it will be happening :) I'll start posting once the 1st draft of the whole thing is complete. Thank you for all of the encouragement in the comments and all the kudos!

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos & comments are love <3


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